Dr Afsheen Malik is an early career researcher and is currently working as a research assistant in the Flower Power group headed by Dr Rainer Melzer at the University College Dublin, Ireland, where Dr Malik is presently engaged in deciphering the sex determination mechanisms in hemp using genetics and molecular biology techniques. Dr Malik earned her PhD from the National University of Sciences and Technology, Pakistan. During her PhD, she won a fellowship from the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and visited the Max Planck Institute for Biology, Tübingen, Germany, where she learned about genome editing technology (CRISPR-Cas9). Her PhD dissertation mainly focuses on developing an efficient system for hybrid seed generation using genome editing technology. Besides research, she has contributed to the academic community as an editorial board member for the Applications in Plant Sciences Journal, published by the Botanical Society of America. Currently, she is also serving as a scientific committee member at EIHA.
