Jérôme Salse is a researcher at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRAE) in Clermont-Ferrand. He obtained an engineering degree in 1996 from the École Supérieure d’Agriculture de Purpan in Toulouse, and a PhD from the University of Perpignan in 2002. He was awarded his Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches (HDR) in 2009 at the University of Clermont-Ferrand. Jerôme Salse conducts research in palaeogenomics, which aims to reconstruct the past evolution of plants by deciphering the genomes of their extinct ancestors. This information should help to open up new avenues for the development of new varieties adapted to the new contexts of the agroecological transition and climate change.