Giovanni Piccinni
Director
giovanni.piccinni@ag.tamu.edu (979) 314-8094Giovanni Piccinni, Ph.D., Texas Water Resources Institute director, works to connect TWRI and Texas A&M University System faculty and staff with a wide range of local, state, federal and private entities to develop and move forward initiatives that address pressing water resources issues facing Texas and the nation.
Dr. Piccinni joined TWRI in August 2024, leading the institute's work in providing science-based, community-supported solutions for the state’s critical water quantity and quality challenges through internal expertise and external collaborations.
He previously led global seed and plant production optimization and sustainability initiatives at Bayer Crop Sciences. Serving in leadership roles at Monsanto and Bayer from 2008-2024, his work included developing strategies to improve production with input efficiency, especially in water resources, serving as a constant benchmark.
From 1995 to 2008, he served Texas A&M AgriLife Research as a postdoctoral assistant research scientist, assistant professor and associate professor at laboratory and field research locations in Amarillo and Uvalde. During this time, Dr. Piccinni led research programs in plant stress and disease stress physiology that advanced irrigation and yield optimization technologies in drought environments. His advances included remote-sensing technologies and plant-growth computer models — digital tools to help production systems respond to changing environments.
Dr. Piccinni holds an agronomy and crop physiology doctorate from the University of Bari, Italy, and he completed executive training at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Sloan School of Management.
He served on the American Society of Agronomy board of directors from 2020 to 2023. He is also a member of the Crop Science Society of America, Soil Science Society of America and the European Society of Doctors in Agronomy.