Anna Koltunow has made outstanding contributions to understanding plant reproduction by uncovering mechanisms regulating fruit and seed formation via sexual and asexual (apomictic) pathways. She discovered mechanisms controlling seedless fruit formation and has generated seedless fruit in crops. Her pioneering work in apomixis, developing and using an apomict species where remarkably, female gametes form without meiosis, and seeds develop in the absence of paternal fertilization as a genetic and molecular model has identified similarities and differences in the mechanisms controlling apomixis and sexual seed formation. Koltunow's discoveries are being used in developing crops with transformational productivity improvements in developing countries.