John Hart

EarthWork Seeds
Oveido, FL

John Hart is a recent addition to EarthWork Seeds as a vegetable breeder establishing breeding programs in common bean, watermelon, brassicas, and tomato. Prior to his move to the private sector, John was a Postdoctoral Research Geneticist with Tim Porch in the Bean Program at the Tropical Agriculture Research Station of the USDA-ARS in Puerto Rico.

While in Puerto Rico, John worked with tepary beans, an orphan crop with immense potential to respond to current and future climate change scenarios in the tropics. John also spent 6 months as a Seed Matters Postdoctoral Fellow at Cornell University where he worked with Michael Mazourek on a range of vegetable breeding and genetics projects. John obtained his Ph.D. in Plant Breeding in 2014 from Cornell. John’s intent is to survey, develop, and deploy the genetic diversity of vegetables and specialty crops to enhance sustainable agriculture, rural development, economic viability, and human health in both regional and international contexts.