Dr Rhiannon Schilling

Dr Schilling is an agricultural scientist. She is the Program Leader of Agronomy at the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI), the Deputy Director of the South Australian Drought Resilience Adoption and Innovation Hub ("SA Drought Hub", $19.47 M, 59 partners) and Adjunct Associate Professor at Flinders University. She has expertise in agronomy, plant physiology, soil science, molecular biology and remote sensing.

During her PhD, she evaluated the salinity tolerance of transgenic barley lines expressing a vacuolar proton-pumping pyrophosphatase gene and established the first field trials of GM barley at saline sites in Australia. Between 2014-2016, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow on a GRDC-funded project (UA00145) 'Development of salinity tolerant wheat and barley". Between 2016-2020, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow on a GRDC-funded project (UA00159) "Improving wheat yields on sodic, magnesic and dispersive soils" and developed pre-breeding wheat lines with improved tolerance to subsoil constraints.

Dr Schilling manages >$30 M of research projects focused on improving crop and soil management and 50+ research and technical staff throughout the low, medium and high rainfall zones of SA. As an early career researcher, receiving her PhD in 2014, she has supervised 10 PhD, Masters and Honours students and published 14 peer-reviewed scientific articles with >433 citations. Dr Schilling is the recipient of thirteen academic awards including the AIPS SA Young Tall Poppy award and the University of Adelaide’s Vice Chancellors Award for Outstanding Excellence in Early Career Research.