Crystal Concepcion is a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. For the RIPE project, she designs new varieties of legumes to produce  higher yields with limited resources due to the changing climate. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology and her master’s degree in molecular biology at the University of the Philippines at Los Baños. She earned her doctorate in agricultural science at the University of Queensland. Her work has been published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, New Phytologist, and Metabolomics.