Our People

David joined InterGrain in 2007 after a 25 year career in plant breeding and plant genetics with the Department of Primary Industries, and previously the University of Adelaide.  He has played an integral role in setting the governance and commercial platform for the business. Over the course of his career, he has become Australia’s most successful barley breeder, with over 50% of the national area sown to his varieties.  Whilst with InterGrain, David has released some of Australia’s highest yielding barley varieties including La Trobe and Spartacus CL and more recently Neo and Maximus CL.

His research interests remain in the areas of crop physiology and stress tolerance, and he is passionate about Australia’s opportunities as the malting barley producing epicenter for the Asian brewing markets.  David is actively involved in industry forums, currently being vice Chairman of the Grains Industry of Western Australia Barley Council.

Dr David Tabah, “DT”, is InterGrain’s Senior Wheat Breeder. DT has over 20 years experience in the industry in diverse high profile breeding roles. He was previously Crop Research Lead for the Canola program at Pacific Seeds/Advanta where he delivered market-leading varieties. Prior to that, DT was a Barley Breeder with InterGrain, so he is very familiar with our company and culture, and we are delighted to welcome him back! His career started in the UK as a breeder for several horticultural crops, including lettuce and cabbage, before moving to Enza Zaden to work as a biotech breeder in tomatoes, implementing new technologies within a world-leading breeding program.

DT’s broad experience, international outlook, and deep understanding of breeding methodologies are ideally suited to continue to deliver outstanding new wheat varieties for Australia.

DT was born in the Canary Islands (Spain) and speaks three languages fluently. He studied Biological Sciences (University of Oxford) and holds a PhD in Genetics and Molecular Biology (University of Bristol).

DT also supports InterGrain’s Pulse and Oilseed Strategy, assisting InterGrain’s efforts to secure viable rotation options for Australian farmers into the future.

Dr. Allan Rattey is InterGrain’s national oat breeder.

Before joining the company in 2018, Allan worked with Dow AgroSciences as the lead wheat breeder in Australia, where he oversaw the company’s national plant breeding structure and science. He was also accountable for Dow’s Southern Breeding Node – The Australian wheat breeding program.

As a plant breeder Allan has actively pursued his keen interest in leveraging technology applied in global crops, including corn and soybeans, and successfully implemented several synergistic strategies within Australian wheat breeding. Allan has also contributed significantly to local research, particularly with his involvement in sponsored genomic research at AVR.

Prior to joining Dow, Allan worked with CSIRO as the national gateway breeder and trait pre-breeder, and has also spent time at BSES as a sugarcane breeder in Northern Queensland. Allan holds a Bachelor of Science, and a PhD in Quantitative Genetics from the University of Queensland.

Silvina is the early generation barley breeder, joining the company in 2022. In her role as early generation breeder, Silvina focuses on the creation of new barley breeding populations, applying the newest genomics and phenomics technologies, to identify and select the most promising genotypes.

Before joining InterGrain, Silvina was the National Barley Breeder at the National Institute for Agricultural Research (INIA), in Uruguay, for 8 years. Silvina is completing her PhD at The University of Adelaide. Her research project is on the adoption of genomic selection in a commercial barley breeding program, focusing on the integration of phenomics and genomics to enhance the grain yield prediction accuracy, as well as the utilization of multi-phase analysis to improve prediction accuracies of malting quality traits. Silvina holds a MS in Agricultural Science and an Agronomic Engineer Degree from Universidad de la República (UDELAR, Uruguay). Her research focused on developing breeding strategies for the management of wheat stem rust in Uruguay.

Calum is the early generation national hard wheat breeder at InterGrain, joining the company in 2020. He holds a Ph.D. in barley quantitative genetics from Murdoch University in addition to a master’s degree in quantitative genetics and breeding from the University of Western Australia. His research focused on determining which genes control grain size in barley in a bid to better identify breeding targets to reduce screenings through a number of different approaches including genetic engineering (CRISPR-Cas9). 

In his new role Dr Watt will focus on the development of hard winter and spring wheats for Australia from the initial cross with the aid of new breeding technologies such as genomic selection. Additionally, he is leveraging new and existing partnerships with local and international researchers to incorporate new technologies and germplasm into our hard wheat programs to improve the productivity, sustainability and profitability of Australian wheat production. 

As InterGrain’s early generation wheat breeder, Jayfred is primarily involved in the genetic improvement and germplasm enhancement of udon and soft wheats. He is responsible for the creation of (targeted) breeding populations until achievement of pure-breeding genotypes, following several rounds of evaluation and selection. He is very keen to partner with pre-breeders and researchers to identify new strategies and apply the latest tools to improve selection efficiency in both high yielding and marginal environments.

Dr Godoy leads the implementation of high-throughput phenotyping and genotyping in the wheat and barley breeding pipelines. He is actively participating in several collaborative projects with leading Australian research institutions to upscale InterGrain’s phenomics capabilities.

Before joining InterGrain in 2018, Jayfred was a Postdoctoral Researcher in winter wheat breeding at Washington State University (USA). His research projects included genomic prediction and association genetic studies on wheat grain quality, agronomic traits, and spectral reflectance indices. He also worked on the application of various high-throughput phenotyping platforms in wheat breeding. Jayfred holds a Bachelor of Science in Agriculture from Visayas State University (Philippines), MS in Agronomy from Kansas State University (USA) and PhD in Crop Science (Plant Breeding and Genetics) from Washington State University (USA).

Haelee joined InterGrain towards the end of 2019 as the Cereal Chemist and has led the implementation and development of the quality laboratory at our Bibra Lake site. Haelee has a Bachelor of Science in Food Science and Technology (First Class Honours), and a PhD in Public Health (Food Science) from Curtin University.

Prior to joining InterGrain, Haelee was an experienced lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in higher education, most recently in the Food Science and Technology undergraduate, postgraduate, and higher degree programs at Curtin University. Haelee has also worked in the grain and food industry with roles at the Department of Agriculture and Food of Western Australia, CBH Group, and different food companies including Vesco Foods, Brownes Dairy, and Glenhaven Foods (ROI).

Haelee’s research interests primarily encompass the areas of cereal science, health, and sensory evaluation. Research projects in the past have involved understanding raw material quality (for example: wheat and oat quality), processing parameters, and end product quality of products such as bulgur, chapatti, noodles and steamed bread. Focus on the development of products with improved nutrition and health outcomes is also of interest, and previous research has investigated effects of ingredients and processing on nutritional value, satiety and postprandial glycaemia. The unique mix of prior roles has been valuable in gaining experience and understanding of the whole value chain from pre–breeding to paddock, to plate and beyond into human health. Haelee’s role at InterGrain is focused on delivering high value and quality grain testing to support our plant breeding strategy and programs; and advancing cereal science and innovation in grain quality through engagement with the grains and wider industries. 

Dini is the Business and Research Development Manager for InterGrain’s wheat, barley and oat breeding programs and has more than 9 years’ experience in all aspects of RD&E. Dini has a PhD in plant breeding & statistics and an undergraduate degree in Agricultural Science (with Honours) and Economics from the University of Western Australia. During her involvement on the Emerging Industries Technical advisory panel, Dini hopes to contribute to the extension of R&D to ensure that various projects in their design and application, see implementation and deployment to the benefit of the industry. 

Chris Lisle is the Biometrician for InterGrain where he leads the development and implementation of statistical methodology to InterGrain’s breeding programs.

Chris joined InterGrain in 2022 after spending 20 years as a statistical consultant for the Australian grains industry. He comes with a wealth of experience and application in the areas of linear mixed models, experimental design, big data management, and R programming. In particular, he is a world leading expert in the analysis of multi-environment trial (MET) analyses and the dissemination of their results. Recently, he has submitted his PhD thesis which provides statistical methodology and procedures for information-based diagnostics for the optimal construction of MET datasets, and was the recent joint winner of the 23rd Annual JB Douglas Postgraduate Award for his research.

Federico is the Plant Growth Facilities Manager at InterGrain, having joined the company in 2020. He has extensive experience in the development of biotechnology tools for accelerated breeding for pulses, cereals and oil seed crops, and on the management of large-scale commercial breeding populations. He has a strong background in plant physiology, genetics and breeding; doubled haploidy and tissue culture technologies.

Dr Ribalta holds a Ph.D. in pulse breeding technologies from the University of Western Australia and INRA, France. Before joining Intergrain, he was involved in the development and implementation of GRDC funded innovative biotech programs at UWA. This was achieved whether by the compression of breeding cycles in controlled environments through the manipulation of plant morphogenesis and use of state-of-the-art LED light technology, combined with integrated high throughput phenotyping, or through interspecific hybridisation, cloning, single-cell mutation and doubled haploidy.

In his role at InterGrain, Federico is responsible for overseeing all operations related to glasshouse production for Intergrain’s breeding programs. His role involves the development of high-level strategies for the acceleration of the early generation cycle times and integration of high throughout phenotyping within the glasshouse pipeline. He also has a high-level input to the design of InterGrain’s new glasshouse and early generation advancement facilities.