Caroline Dowling is a PhD candidate in plant genetics at the School of Biology and Environmental Science, University College Dublin. She completed her BSc in Plant Biology at UCD which included a semester abroad at McGill University in Montreal, Canada and a research internship at the National Science and Technology Development Agency in Thailand. Caroline’s doctoral research is funded by an Irish Research Council-Environmental Protection Agency scholarship and focuses on elucidating the genetic control of flowering time in hemp (Cannabis sativa). Hemp is a highly versatile, sustainable crop, but to facilitate global cultivation by developing new cultivars adapted to specific climatic conditions, a greater understanding of flowering time control is crucial. As a Fulbright-EPA Student Awardee to Cornell University in New York, Caroline will investigate the genetic variation in a hemp germplasm collection to characterize the genetic architecture of flowering time in hemp.