Karla Cuéllar
PhD Student
Montserrat Cuéllar Pérez is a Ph.D. student in Complex Biosystems at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, specializing in Integrative Plant Biology. Her research focuses on the comparative analysis of eQTLs in maize and sorghum. She has a background in bioinformatics and molecular biology, and her interests include gene regulation, statistical genomics, and plant systems biology.
In the News
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Farewell to summer intern Christopher Wang
Farewell to our summer high school intern Christopher Wang, who worked with Karla Cuéllar developing and testing new methods to estimate chlorophyll content from leaf images. Chris was supported by the Young Nebraska Scientist program and delivered his farewell poster presentation at the 2026 summer Nebraska Research Fair. -
Students fly the lab's first UAV timepoint
Our lab has worked with UAV data for almost a decade—building code, training and evaluating models, answering questions, and publishing papers—but we depended on collaborators and contractors to fly our fields. Until now. We collected our first timepoint—of many—for 4,500 research plots outside Lincoln, Nebraska. Our students flew. Thank you to Biquan Zhao (our teacher), Zhongjie Ji (our UAV data expert), and Jinliang Yang (who trusted us with his now-irreplaceable UAV), and congratulations to the lab’s four newly FAA-licensed UAV pilots: Karla Cuéllar, Harshita Mangal, Anuradha Choudhary, and Ryleigh Kirby. Special thanks also to Pascal Izere for outstanding collaboration over the years. -
Schnable Lab at Corn Breeding Research Meeting
Harshita Mangal, Waqar Ali, Karla Cuéllar, and Zhongjie Ji presented at the Corn Breeding Research meeting. -
Schnable Lab at NAPPN Conference
Jensina Davis and Karla Cuéllar spoke at the NAPPN conference in East Lansing, Michigan. -
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. -
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.