Costich joins SSE board

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Denise Costich poses in the CIMMYT seed vault. Photo by Teake Zuidema.

Denise Costich poses in the CIMMYT seed vault. Photo by Teake Zuidema.

Denise E. Costich, Ph.D., was elected to the Seed Savers Exchange board at the group’s October 2020 meeting. 

Costich is a passionate defender of maize genetic resources, devoting the past 18 years to research topics related to the plant’s taxonomy, evolution, and conservation. She most recently served as curator of the maize collection for the CIMMYT (International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center) germplasm bank near Mexico City, retiring from that position in October 2020. 

“Seed Savers Exchange’s mission is the same as the one I followed in the CIMMYT germplasm bank—to conserve the genetic diversity of human-domesticated plants and promote their use,” says Costich. “On my first visit to Heritage Farm, in 2017...I realized that I had found kindred spirits at SSE, and I knew then that I wanted to get involved with the organization once I retired from CIMMYT and returned to the United States.”

Costich holds a bachelor of science degree in biology with a concentration in ecology and systematics from Cornell University and a doctorate from the University of Iowa. She did her doctoral thesis research (on the ecology and evolution of dioecy in a wild cucurbit, Ecballium elaterium) as a Fulbright Scholar in Spain. After a series of postdoctoral positions, she began work in her first maize lab in 2000, at the Boyce Thompson Institute at Cornell University. Her interest in crop evolution and plant population biology then led her to join the lab of Ed Buckler, a plant geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service and Cornell, where she spent six years. In 2012, she became the curator of the maize collection of CIMMYT’s germplasm bank. While at CIMMYT, she took part in research that supports community participation in landrace conservation.

Upon her retirement from CIMMYT last fall, she returned to Ithaca, New York, where she hopes to continue to collaborate with Buckler’s lab and pursue other projects related to seed conservation—including service on the SSE board. 

“When I was invited to join the SSE board, it was like a dream come true,” she says. “I am looking forward to sharing the experience and knowledge I acquired at CIMMYT with the staff at SSE and to learning all I can from them.”