Susana Milla-Lewis is originally from Lima, Peru. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences in 1989 from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia. In 1996, she emigrated to North Carolina to pursue graduate studies in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at North Carolina State University. She obtained a MS degree in 1998 and a PhD in 2003, in tobacco breeding and peanut breeding and genetics, respectively. In 2009, she was hired to start the Turfgrass Breeding and Genetics Program at NC State University. The goal of the program is to improve the sustainability and economic gain of the overall turfgrass industry in North Carolina through the development of cultivars that require reduced inputs and that are capable of tolerating biotic and environmental stresses while still maintaining good quality and overall performance. Additionally, the program is focusing on generating genomic information and utilizing it to relate phenotypic traits to DNA nucleotide polymorphism.