Biography
Dr. Juan Arbelaez is a plant breeder and geneticist who is passionate about reducing hunger, malnutrition, and poverty around the world. In pursuit of this passion, Juan is focusing on a) developing varieties of spring oat (Avena sativa) and rice (Oryza sativa) with enhanced nutritional quality, b) helping breeders around the world develop and implement cost-effective breeding methods and tools to accelerate breeding for multiple traits including yield and grain quality, and c) developing cover crop oat varieties for the Midwest to help protect life-sustaining natural resources.
Dr. Juan Arbelaez began his career at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) in Cali, Colombia where he worked on developing novel rice germplasm with introgressions from wild rice species to support the global rice community. Juan then went on to do a Ph.D. and a post-doc in Dr. Susan McCouch’s rice genetics lab at Cornell University where he worked on understanding the genetic bases of tolerance to aluminum and iron toxicity, which are critical abiotic stresses affecting rice production in parts of South America and Africa. Prior to joining the University of Illinois, Juan was a rice breeder at the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), headquartered in the Philippines, where he played a critical role in the development and deployment of a global genomic selection strategy to accelerate rice improvement in irrigated environments across Southeast Asia and West Africa.
Research Interests
Dr. Arbelaez-Velez focuses on the genetics and breeding of internationally important crops like rice and oats to diversify the regional agricultural system and to support agricultural productivity in developing nations.
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Crop Sciences
Assistant Professor, Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies
Recent Publications
Bekele, W. A., Avni, R., Birkett, C. L., Itaya, A., Wight, C. P., Bellavance, J., Brodführer, S., Canales, F. J., Carlson, C. H., Fiebig, A., Li, Y., Michel, S., Nandety, R. S., Waring, D. J., Arbelaez, J. D., Beattie, A. D., Caffe, M., del Blanco, I. A., Fiedler, J. D., ... Tinker, N. A. (2025). Global genomic population structure of wild and cultivated oat reveals signatures of chromosome rearrangements. Nature communications, 16(1), Article 9486. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-57895-3
Dhakal, A., Cruz, M., Loaiza, K., Cuasquer, J., Rosas, J., Graterol, E., & Arbelaez, J. D. (2025). Implementing marker covariates and multi-trait genomic selection models to improve grain milling, appearance, cooking, and edible quality in rice (Oryza sativa L.). Plant Genome, 18(3), Article e70068. https://doi.org/10.1002/tpg2.70068
Hale, I., Koebernick, J., Hershberger, J., Rife, T., Arbelaez, J. D., Anderson, N., Bekkerman, A., Bohn, M., Bourland, F., Burke, T., Chee, P., Evans, K., Fumia, N., Feldmann, M., Gasic, K., Hague, S., Heilman-Morales, A. M., Kemp, A. H., Iglesias, C., ... Kantar, M. (2025). Sustaining public plant breeding programs across generations. Crop Science, 65(3), Article e70094. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70094
Krause, M. R., Arbelaez, J. D., Asdal, Å., Belkodja, R., Boury, N., Blake, V. C., Brown, P. J., Casas, A., Cistué, L., Farré-Martínez, A., Fisk, S., Fuerst, G. S., Giménez, E., Guijarro-Real, C., Guthrie, K., Halstead, M., Helgerson, L., Hisano, H., Igartua, E., ... Hayes, P. M. (2025). Oregon Wolfe barley genetic stocks – Research and teaching tools for next generation scientists. Journal of Plant Registrations, 19(3), Article e70004. https://doi.org/10.1002/plr2.70004
Scheffel, S., Lado, B., Pérez de Vida, F., Molina, F., Arbeláez, J. D., & Rosas, J. E. (2025). Use of historical data improves early selection in a public rice breeding program. Crop Science, 65(6), Article e70211. https://doi.org/10.1002/csc2.70211