The plant breeding community at the University of Guelph is remembering an influential mentor and researcher as someone who cared deeply about people and never lost sight of the humanity involved in taking a proper approach to research.
Alireza (Ali) Navabi, pictured at left — originally from Iran where he did his undergrad studies — was a wheat breeder and professor in the university’s Department of Plant Agriculture. He passed away earlier this year after a battle with pancreatic cancer at the age of 53.
A loving husband and devoted father of two boys, he first joined the department in 2008 as an adjunct professor and since 2014 held the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO) Professorship in Wheat Breeding.
Among his many accomplishments was his building of the wheat breeding program at the University of Guelph and developing its first winter wheat variety OAC Galaxy, soon to be released.
A number of other wheat lines in the pipeline from his program are reaching the final stages of testing.
He also developed a speed breeding method that can produce 3.2 generations per year.
“That’s extremely fast. The method was developed originally in Australia but he used his resourcefulness to adopt and adapt it for the University of Guelph,” says Navabi’s colleague and friend Istvan Rajcan, a plant breeder at the university, pictured at right.
“He built a strong and dynamic multifaceted breeding program in a very short time. He obtained germplasm from various sources and started doing breeding right away when he started as a faculty member. He had a multitude of projects funded from many sources, including the seed industry. He was known as an amazing grant writer. It was actually very rare for one of his grant applications to be turned down.”
Navabi taught multiple undergraduate and graduate courses as well as advising 12 graduate students. He sat on over 25 graduate advisory committees.
“He was very dedicated to his research but also knew that working at a university meant teaching is an important part of your responsibilities. He cared a lot about the students, and they spent many hours in his office where he would discuss their projects with them and make sure they were doing well,” says Peter Pauls (left), a University of Guelph plant breeder and colleague of Navabi’s.
“I think he had a very clear vision of how one could go about working at the whole plant breeding enterprise in a way that made it fun and relaxed.”
Rajcan agrees that Navabi had an ability to put students at ease and help them work through their struggles. His office was located next to Navabi’s — which gave him unique insight into Navabi as a mentor for his students.
“He had a huge heart and patience for everyone in terms of listening to them and supporting them. He’d talk to a student until they got to a better place if they were stressed or overwhelmed. They always left his office better off than when they arrived. Being in the neighbouring office, I had the pleasure of witnessing that many, many times.”
Harwinder Sidhu was one of those students, pictured above with Navabi. He was a graduate student of Navabi’s and worked with him for over four years and is still part of the wheat breeding program at the university.
“He was always there to help others. One of my family members was going through a tough time once and Ali tried to help even when he had no obligation to do so. This was a few months after I had started to work with him. That established in my mind the kind of character he had, and I really looked up to him for that,” Sidhu says.
“He organized the Christmas party in 2017 for the department. He ensured that there was music for everyone in every language and culture to which the attendees belonged. Even the people who considered themselves introverts got up and danced. That’s just one example of how he always tried to make everyone around him feel at ease and comfortable.”
Soren Seifi (left) joined Navabi's lab in June 2017 as a postdoctoral fellow. He remembers Navabi as someone who incorporated creativity into his work — something more often associated with the arts than the sciences.
“When I started my postdoc project I expected a certain type of outcome from the initial experiments. However, the results were totally different from what we expected. I personally thought — at the time I did not know him very well — that I had messed the things up and he would be disappointed. To my surprise, he actually appreciated the unexpected outcome, and asked me to focus on those ‘strange’ results and work on them and he assured me that he trusted the quality of my work,” Seifi says.
“His support and trust gave me enough confidence to continue my analyses, and after a while I was able to find convincing answers for those unexpected observations, which led us to very promising and novel findings that are now a solid foundation for a nice research publication.”
Navabi himself published his own fair share of research — 65 peer-reviewed papers and 30 variety disclosures, to be exact. He also gave over 100 conference presentations both nationally and internationally.
According to Mina Kaviani (at right), another of Navabi’s protégés, his research served a multifaceted function in his life.
“I think scientific research was a great way for him to make friends. He loved science and was great at it, but he had an even greater heart,” she says. “Of course, we miss him, but I don't feel he’s gone. His kindness and wisdom lit a little flame inside each one of us who worked with him. I'm sure I will come across many situations where making decision is hard, and I will simply ask myself: what would Dr. Navabi do?”