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Ryleigh J. Kirby is a Plant Biology major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and an undergraduate researcher in the Schnable Lab. Since joining the lab in 2022, she has contributed to multiple projects at the intersection of plant genetics, comparative genomics, and high-throughput phenotyping. Ryleigh has co-authored peer-reviewed publications in The Plant Phenome Journal and PeerJ, and her work has been presented at national conferences including the Maize Genetics Meeting and the National Corn Congress. She also gained industry experience as a North American Discovery Breeding Intern with Syngenta in 2023, where she collaborated with breeders and senior scientists on pipeline optimization. In addition to her research, Ryleigh serves as a teaching assistant for both introductory and advanced plant science courses, and is President of UNL Plant Biology Club as well as a member of the CASNR Student Advisory Board. Ryleigh is passionate about using computational and genomic tools to support applied breeding programs. As a first-generation researcher, she is driven by the goal of improving crop systems through science and plants to pursue a Ph.D. in computation biology after graduation.