Jennifer Petersen is the Executive Vice President/Chief Science Officer at Sun World International and has been delivering innovation to the produce industry for over 25 years. In her early career, Jennifer was a small-scale producer of certified organic fruit, vegetables, and seed in the coast range of Oregon and later led R&D projects and teams at the University of California -Davis, Monsanto, and Bayer. She currently leads the Sun World R&D program whose focus is to deliver healthy, flavorful, and sustainable solutions for the evolving needs of growers and consumers around the globe.
Jennifer obtained her Bachelor of Science in Horticulture at Oregon State University and her Ph.D. in Plant Biology at U.C. Davis. She was a Fulbright Scholar in Mexico and has conducted agricultural research in more than 20 countries around the world.