Eric Cassetta

Born and raised in Arizona, Eric now lives in Salina. He received a BS with a major in Biological Sciences (Genetics, Cell and Developmental Biology) and a minor in Philosophy from Arizona State University. He was employed at a functional genomics lab that worked exclusively on plants, where they grew many of the species they studied, similar to the work of The Land Institute.  He also worked in a conservation corps based in Flagstaff, AZ, where they conserved and restored many ecosystems in parks and nature areas. Eric interned at The Land Institute in the summer of 2018, doing project-specific work with the crop protection genetics (CPG) program. He returned in 2019 as a research resident working with both the CPG and perennial oilseeds programs on the above-ground diseases of Silphium, then covered the soil ecology technician position in 2020-2021.