Sophie Carpenter is a second-year PhD student from the John Innes Centre in the UK. She studied at the University of Bristol, UK for her bachelor’s degree in biology. During this time, she undertook an internship in Keith Edwards’ lab investigating the CLAVATA-WUSCHEL signaling pathway. She continued in the Edwards lab for her master’s degree when she implemented novel CRISPR-Cas9 technology in wheat. Following this, Sophie spent seven months as a research technician in Jill Harrison’s group, also at the University of Bristol, continuing her work on the CLAVATA-WUSCHEL pathway. In 2020, she moved to Norwich to start her PhD in Cristobal Uauy’s lab where she is investigating how the MADS-box transcription factor VRT-A2 affects wheat spike development and causes increased grain length.