She serves as Scientific Director for The McKnight Foundation’s Collaborative Crop Research Program. Her laboratory works on the genetic dissection of quantitative disease resistance in maize, in collaboration with maize geneticists and breeders at Cornell, in Kenya and elsewhere. Prior to moving to Cornell in 2001, she worked at the International Potato Center in Lima, Peru (1996-2001), and at the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines (1988-1996). Rebecca holds a B.A. degree from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington. A MacArthur Fellow from 1998 through 2003, she has served on the editorial boards of Theoretical and Applied Genetics, Phytopathology, and the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.