Wayne Parrott received a degree in agronomy from the University of Kentucky, and MS and PhD degrees in Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He joined the faculty at the University of Georgia in 1988. Since then he has been conducting research on the development, use and safety of transgenic (i.e., GM) crop plants, using grant monies from USDA-NIFA, NSF, DOE and the United Soybean Board. He has published a guide for environmental risk assessment of GMOs, along with ~ 110 journal articles in refereed publications and 14 book chapters. He has served terms on the editorial boards of biotechnology journals. He has served as elected chair of the biotechnology section of the Crop Science Society of America and of the plant section of the Society for In Vitro Biology, and is a fellow of both of these societies, as well as of AAAS. He is actively engaged in training graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, and teaches graduate-level courses in genetics and undergraduate courses in agroecology and sustainable agriculture. He has traveled extensively throughout Latin America and other countries, and advised legislators and regulators in the various countries on the requisites for a functional regulatory system that ensures the safety of GM products. He volunteered for 6 years as a scientific advisor to the Biotechnology Committee of the International Life Sciences Institute, which served to develop best-practices guides for GMO food and feed safety evaluation.