Recent Highlights
-
James Schnable wins NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture
James Schnable has been announced as the 2026 winner of the National Academy of Sciences Prize in Food and Agriculture Sciences. The prize recognizes researchers who have made extraordinary contributions to agriculture and food science. -
PAG Lab Reunion
Hit a new record for the number of lab alumni attended: L→R Sunil K. Kenchanmane Raju (now of UC Riverside), James Schnable, Zhikai Liang (now of NDSU), Ravi Mural (now of SDSU), and Vla Torres-Rodriguez (news coming soon). -
Prof. Schnable featured on The Crop Science Podcast
In this episode of The Crop Science Podcast, James Schnable discusses how genetics, genomics, and machine learning are reshaping modern hybrid development—explaining how breeders use genomic prediction and high-throughput phenotyping to tackle climate variability, stress tolerance, and yield stability. -
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.
Archive
November 2025
-
JonTurkus Wins the 2025 Outstanding Employee Award
Our exceptional lab manager Jonathan Turkus named the 2025 Outstanding Employee. Jon’s determination and creativity have made just a big impact not only on our lab, but on groups across the country over the past five years. Congratulations, Jon!
October 2025
-
TPJ Outstanding Paper Award
Vladimir Torres-Rodríguez’s 2024 paper Population-level gene expression can repeatedly link genes to functions in maize has been selected as The Plant Journal’s Outstanding Original Article award of 2024. -
UNL-Bayer Hackathon
Ryleigh Kirby, Harshita Mangal, Sofiya Arora, Jensina Davis, Hadiya Kounsar, Ozgur Altundas, Amany Gomaa, and Karla Cuéllar joined the Bayer Agriculture Data Hackathon, where Sofiya’s team won first place, Hadiya and Ryleigh’s team took second, Jensina’s team placed third, and Ozgur’s team earned the social engagement award. -
Ozgur Altundas wins Agronomy Elevator Pitch competition
Two short months into his time in our lab, Ozgur Altundas took home second prize at the UNL Agronomy Elevator Pitch competition. -
Wrapping up our 2026 field season
Thank you to everyone from our lab, and our collaborators in the Benson and Kim labs, who showed up on a cold Saturday morning to complete the hand harvest of our lab field for 2025. Now time to start planning 2026 fields. -
Students Presentations at the PSI Plant Science Symposium
Jensina Davis, Harshita Mangal, and Sofiya Arora each had the chance to deliver presentations at the 2025 PSI Plant Science Symposium here on campus. -
NCSU Genetics and Genomics Academy seminar
James delivers a seminar for the North Carolina State Genetics and Genomics Academy. While there, he had the chance to catch up with two of our successful lab alumni: Nate Korth (now a postdoc with Joe Gage) and Lina Lopez (now a field manager with Jim Holland).
September 2025
-
CSA News Highlight
Deniz İştipliler’s paper on how maize hybrid leaf spectra differ from their inbred parents featured in CSA News. -
Presentation at PSEPB in Warsaw Poland
James Schnable was one of the keynote speakers at the 12th Conference of the Polish Society of Experimental Plant Biology. His host was Marcin Grzybowski, a former postdoc in our lab, now an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw where the conference was held. -
International Meeting on Plant Breeding talk
James Schnable delivered “From Breeder’s Eye to Silicon Eyes: New Tools for an Old Challenge” at the 9th International Meeting on Plant Breeding in Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil.
August 2025
-
High School Student Research Presentation
Ha Truyen, a summer high school researcher in our lab, presented her project on identifying genes with opposite effects on flowering time in Nebraska and Michigan at the Nebraska Summer Research Symposium. -
New graduate students join in Fall 2025
Welcome to PhD candidates Karla Cuéllar and Ozgur Altundas, and MS student Hadiya Kounsar. Karla is a returning lab member having worked with us twice as a visiting undergraduate. Ozgur is a former student of Caner Yavuz, a former lab member who now works as an assistant professor in Turkey.
July 2025
-
Corteva New Frontiers symposium
Jensina Davis, Sofiya Arora, and James Schnable were invited attendees and presenters at the Corteva-organized New Frontiers symposium in Johnston, Iowa. -
Bayer Crop Science campus talk
James Schnable gave a talk at Bayer’s main Crop Science campus in St. Louis. He caught up with lab alum Chenyong Miao, now a genomic data scientist at Bayer, and briefly met Bayer CEO Bill Anderson (in passing, in an elevator) during the visit. -
Plants People Planet cover feature
Michael Tross and a paper led by Nikee Shrestha are featured on the cover of Plants, People, Planet. Read the cover write-up, which links to the paper.
June 2025
-
Corteva genotyping tour and lab visit
Michael Tross, who earned his PhD in Plant Science in our lab and now works as an AI data scientist at Corteva, arranged for nearly the entire lab to drive from Lincoln to Johnston to talk science with Corteva researchers and tour their impressive high-throughput genotyping facilities. -
Sorghum TWAS Published
“Genes and pathways determining flowering time variation in temperate-adapted sorghum,” our lab’s first sorghum TWAS paper was published in TPJ. Congratulations to lead author Harshita Mangal and the whole team who made this happen.
May 2025
-
Jensina wins another fellowship
Jensina Davis was selected for a Heuermann Award by the Center for Plant Science Innovation. The fellowship is awarded excellence in plant science research and potential impact on the field subsequent to graduation.
March 2025
-
Deniz İştipliler returns for seminar
Dr. Deniz İştipliler, a former scientist in our lab, now a professor at Ege University in Turkey, returned to UNL as part of the Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series, discussing his work optimizing agricultural water use efficiency. -
ARPA-E Summit representation
Jon Turkus and Chidu Ullagaddi highlighted the lab’s ARPA-E project at the 2025 ARPA-E Summit in Washington, DC. -
Baker Plant Breeding Symposium talk
Dr. James Schnable presented on scaling trait discovery at the Baker Plant Breeding Symposium. -
Nebraska Sorghum Symposium presentation
Dr. Schnable shared the lab’s latest sorghum research at the Nebraska Sorghum Symposium in Grand Island. -
Maize Meeting Conference presence
Graduate students and postdocs presented research on yield, nitrogen responses, and cis-regulatory variation at the 2025 Maize Meeting conference. -
Nebraska Plant Science Symposium contributions
Lab members contributed to discussions on advancing plant science research at the Nebraska Plant Science Symposium.
February 2025
-
Nature Genetics publication
Drs. Vladimir Torres-Rodriguez and Guangchao Sun contributed to a Nature Genetics paper. -
Jinliang Yang named Gardner Professor
Dr. Jinliang Yang was named the Charles O. Gardner Professor of Maize Quantitative Genetics.
January 2025
-
New preprint on yield plasticity
The lab released “Assessing the impact of yield plasticity on hybrid performance in maize” on bioRxiv. -
PAG 2025 invited talk
Dr. James Schnable delivered an invited talk on scaling trait discovery at the PAG Conference. -
Satellite phenotyping spotlight
Nikee Shrestha’s USDA NIFA-supported project on satellite-based corn phenotyping was featured in Plant People Planet. -
Welcoming the new year
The lab rang in the new year and celebrated ongoing collaborations.
November 2024
-
Fangyi Li defends PhD
A big congratulations to Dr. Fangyi Li, a co-mentored PhD student of Prof. Schnable and Prof Roston, on defending her PhD dissertation! Her research focused on photosynthesis and cold tolerance in sorghum and maize. She (and her two cats) are headed to Kunming Institute of Botany where she’ll work as a postdoc. -
ARPA-E Agricultural Portfolio Summit
Prof. Schnable delivered a talk on our recently completed project using AI to predict corn’s phenotypes across environments at the ARPA-E Agricultural Portfolio Summit in San Antonio, TX. -
Distinguished Lecture at SDSU
Prof. Schnable delivered the Distinguished Lecture in Precision Agriculture at South Dakota State University (SDSU), hosted by recent lab alum and new SDSU Professor Ravi Mural. His talk was titled “How New Tools Are Shaping the Ways We Understand Both Genomes and Field Trials.”
October 2024
-
Jensina Davis advances to candidacy
Jensina Davis passed her qualifying exam and is now a PhD candidate in Integrated Plant Biology. Congratulations, Jensina! -
Sunil Kenchanmane visits for PSI Retreat
We had the chance to host Prof. Sunil Kenchanmane, a former postdoc now a faculty member at UC Riverside, as a guest speaker at the 2024 Nebraska Plant Science retreat and got to hear about his work on plant comparative epigenomics and stress tolerance. -
CSU Plant Adaptation Symposium
Prof. Schnable was an invited speaker at the student-organized Plant Adaptation Symposium at Colorado State University!
September 2024
-
Caner Yavuz joins as Fulbright Scholar
We welcomed Dr. Caner Yavuz, a visiting scientist supported by a Fulbright Scholarship to our lab. Caner will work studying and trying to map genes that control improved callus formation in maize. -
NSF Plant Genome Grant awarded
We just received a new NSF Plant Genome Grant, with our collaborators in the Baskar Lab at Iowa State and the Benes Lab at Purdue, to build digital twins of cornfields. -
Niranjan Pokhrel rotation
We welcome Niranjan Pokhrel, a PhD student rotating through our lab as part of the Complex Biosystems program at UNL. Niranjan will be working closely with Zhongjie on the analysis of UAV data.
August 2024
-
Nikee Shrestha advances to candidacy
Nikee Shrestha passed her qualifying exam and became a PhD Candidate in Integrated Plant Biology. Congratulations, Nikee! -
Khang Hoang joins as visiting researcher
We welcomed Khang Hoang to our lab as a visiting researcher. Khang will be working with Jensina Davis using AI models to measure phenotypic plasticity from UAV data. -
Sofiya Arora joins the lab
We welcomed Sofiya Arora to our lab. Sofiya is transferring to our lab from Entomology and will be working with Prof. Torres-Rodriguez to measure the phenotypic impact of cis-regulatory variation in maize.
July 2024
-
Ramesh Kanna defends dissertation
Ramesh passed his dissertation defense on his project using both GWAS and TWAS to map determinants of natural variation in metabolite abundance in maize leaves. Ramesh is headed to a PhD program at Texas A&M. Congratulations Ramesh! -
Karla Cuellar visiting intern
We welcomed Karla Cuellar, a visiting intern from the University of Guanajuato in Mexico to our lab. Karla will be helping us to analyze eQTL in large maize and sorghum datasets. -
Rossy Bedolla joins as office associate
Welcome to the team Rossy Bedolla! Rossy is joining as a part time office associate. She’s based in Arizona and comes recommended as “the most organized person I know.” She’ll have her work cut out keeping us all pointed in the right direction but we’re thrilled to have her on our team. -
Ryleigh Grove awarded UCARE fellowship
Ryleigh Grove (now Ryleigh Kirby) was awarded a UCARE fellowship to support her project adapting image analysis methods from our lab to classifying snakes found in Nebraska. Congrats Ryleigh!
June 2024
-
Zhongjie Ji canopy modeling talk
Dr. Zhongjie Ji delivered a talk on “Advance Canopy Architecture Modeling in Maize” to the Collective Research Organization of Plant Scientists (UNL’s plant grad student and postdoc organization) seminar series.
May 2024
-
Schnable Lab Fest - Ten Years!
The Schnable lab turned ten years old today! Current and former members gathered at Branched Oak Lake and former members who couldn’t be there sent video messages. James was completely surprised. -
Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award
James Schnable received the 2024 Outstanding Postdoc Mentor award from the University of Nebraska. -
Hongyu Jin defends PhD
Congratulations to Hongyu Jin for defending his PhD dissertation. Hongyu will be sticking around as a postdoc here in the lab to finish up some work on phenotyping gene edited lines before moving on to his real postdoc at South China Agricultural University. He tells us he’s really excited to be moving back to a place with good food. -
Michael Tross featured in Midwest Messenger
Dr. Michael Tross, a recent PhD graduate from our lab, featured in a Midwest Messenger article on AI for agriculture!
April 2024
-
Zhongjie Ji named Heuermann Scholar
Zhongjie Ji, the newest UNL-PSI Heuermann postdoctoral scholar recipient, will be working with our lab and UNL Plant Phenomics to translate new plant phenotyping technologies to the field. Welcome Zhongjie! -
Harshita wins awards at NPSS
Harshita Mangal was awarded second prize for her lightning talk at the 2024 Corteva-Nebraska Plant Science Symposium and takes home a poster prize as well. Nicely done! -
Lab presentations at Nebraska Plant Science Symposium
Five members of our lab—Amany (talk), Harshita (talk), Waqar, Ramesh, Nikee, Jensina, and Vladimir—explained their work at the 2024 Nebraska Plant Science Symposium.
March 2024
-
Michael Tross defends PhD
Michael Tross successfully defended his PhD thesis. Congratulations Dr. Tross! Michael will be leaving us for a job as an AI Data Scientist at Corteva Agrisciences.
February 2024
-
Maize Genome Conference presentations
The Schnable Lab presented at the Maize Genome Conference hosted in Raleigh, NC. Two of our grad students presented lightning talks about their posters: Nikee Shrestha and Michael Tross. In addition, Harshita Mangal, Hongyu Jin, Vladimir Torres, Jensina Davis, Waqar Ali, and Ramesh Kanna presented posters.
January 2024
-
Jensina at NCGA committee meetings
Jensina Davis was invited to attend and present at the National Corn Growers Association grower committee meetings in St. Louis, part of her role as a NCGA Research Ambassador. -
Plant and Animal Genome 2024
The Schnable Lab presented at the Plant and Animal Genome 2024 conference in San Diego: Vladimir Torres gave the talk “Population Level Gene Expression Can Repeatedly Link Genes to Functions in Maize”, Nikee Shrestha gave two talks “Efficient High Throughput Phenotyping of Sorghum Seeds Using a Pre-Trained Computer Vision Model” and “Genetic Determinants of Sorghum Phenotypic Variation Under Nitrogen Deficit Stress”, and Jensina Davis gave the talk “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Data: A Case Study in Wrangling Multi-Environment Field Trial Data”.
Looking for earlier stories? Browse the full archive.