Erik Sacks

Principal Investigator Erik Sacks is an Assistant Professor of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois. He received his B.S. in Plant Breeding from Cornell University, and went on to earn his M.S. in Horticulture and his Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of California, Davis. Prior to joining University of Illinois, he was a Manager of Plant Breeding at Mendel Biotechnology, Inc. His work has been published in various journals, including Science.

Sacks has extensive experience in the breeding of perennial grasses, including inter-specific crosses within the Saccharinae clade, which includes Miscanthus, sugarcane, and sorghum. 

As part of the PETROSS program, Sacks will develop sugarcane and sorghum hybrids that contain the genes that confer Miscanthus cold tolerance.