What We Study
- Phenotyping – developing and testing new approaches to measure plants, from greenhouses to fields to satellites.
- Quantitative genetics – collecting genetic, molecular, and trait data from large populations in multiple environments to understand how genes and environment shape plant phenotypes.
- Genomics – using comparative genomics to figure out how to engineer more stress-tolerant and resource-use-efficient plants.
Each lab member gains experience coding, building field equipment, running molecular assays, and communicating results to scientific and public audiences. The cross-training keeps our science grounded in real-world challenges and ensures discoveries translate beyond the lab.
Where Our Trainees Go
Our alumni are employed as professors at eleven universities across four countries, as research scientists at all three of the major seed companies, and at multiple plant biotechnology startups.
Recent Lab News
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New students join for spring 2026
Welcome, Ryleigh Kirby, Surya Krishna Sakthivel, and Hira Aslam. Hira joins us as a visiting PhD student from Pakistan who is studying the regulation of seed mineral content in maize. Surya is a rotating graduate student figuring out how to optimize maize photosynthesis using genomes of crop wild relatives. Ryleigh joined our lab as a high school student, continued as an undergrad, and is now a PhD student integrating high throughput leaf phenotyping with undergraduate science education. -
Three students receive IANR fellowships
Three students in our lab were honored as UNL graduate fellowship recipients. Congratulations to Jensina Davis (Hardin Fellow), Nikee Shrestha, and Sofiya Arora (Widaman Fellows). -
Nebraska Corn outreach
Jensina, Sofiya, and Harshita had the chance to meet with members of the Nebraska Corn Growers Association and talk about their work on lab projects related to crop breeding, optimizing nitrogen use, and using artificial intelligence to study leaf diseases in new ways.
Looking for the Iowa State group led by Dr. Patrick Schnable? Visit their site.