James Schnable

James Schnable

Professor

Research areas: Plant Genomics Phenomics Quantitative Genetics Maize Sorghum

Prof. James Schnable is the Nebraska Corn Checkoff Presidential Chair at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. His research group focuses on integrating new technologies and capabilities from engineering, computer science, and statistics into maize and sorghum genetic and genomic research.

In 2022, James was a visiting researcher at X (Google’s moonshot lab), where he worked on improving genotype-to-phenotype modeling and gene discovery—research that contributed to the spin-out Heritable Agriculture. He is a Fellow of the PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence and received The Plant Journal’s Outstanding Original Research Article award in 2024. As an assistant professor, he received the Marcus Rhoades Early Career Award (2018) and concurrent Early Career Awards from NAPPN and ASPB (2019).

James has founded three companies: Data2Bio (focused on genotyping and breeding decision support), Dryland Genetics (breeding naturally water use efficient crops), and EnGeniousAg (low cost nondestructive nutrient and water sensors for farmers), which was acquired by CropX in 2024. He serves as a consultant or advisor to the scientific advisory boards of a number of larger companies in the agricultural and genomics sectors.

James holds a BA in Biology from Cornell University (2008) and a PhD in Plant Biology from UC-Berkeley (2012). From 2013 to 2014 he was an NSF Plant Genome Fellowship-supported postdoctoral scholar at the Danforth Center in St. Louis and the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing, China.

In the News

  • Multi-omics maize trait prediction in The Plant Cell

    Madison Creach led a Plant Cell paper testing whether population-scale RNA-seq can help predict plant traits across 129 maize phenotype datasets, using gene expression from 750 maize lines grown in two environments. Coauthors include Jon Turkus and James Schnable.

  • James Schnable elected to National Academy of Inventors

    James Schnable has been elected a Senior Member of the National Academy of Inventors.

  • James Schnable speaks at Texas A&M Plant Breeding Symposium

    James Schnable was an invited speaker at the Texas A&M Plant Breeding Symposium in College Station, Texas.

  • 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 Vladimir Torres-Rodriguez (now a Scientist at Traits Company).

  • 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.

Recent Publications

  • Mahamkali VSSS, Davis J, Linders K, Schnable JC, Xu G, Yang J (2026) Distinct effects of domestication and improvement on genetic load and nitrogen-response variation in sorghum. doi: 10.64898/2026.04.28.721488 bioRxiv doi: 10.64898/2026.04.28.721488 Preprint
  • Belaffif MB, Zwiener-Malcom M, Sreedasyam A, Battu G, Ji Z, Hirannaiah P, Manjunatha S, Grzybowski M, Myler S, Dietz B, Grimwood J, Ge Y, Schmutz J, Schnable JC, Swaminathan K (2026) High-throughput hyperspectral phenotyping and transcriptomics reveal expression networks associated with nitrogen-limitation-induced senescence in sorghum. doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9954680/v1 Research Square doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9954680/v1 Preprint
  • Mangal H, Mahboub S, Shomo ZD, Ullagaddi C, Biney EE, Turkus J, Linders K, Tonido CB, Sugita K, Obata T, Schnable JC, Roston RL, Harmon FG (2026) An RNA-seq data resource for time-of-day-dependent cold responses in sorghum and foxtail millet. BMC Research Notes Research Square doi: 10.21203/rs.3.rs-9620448/v1 Accepted
  • Grzybowski M, Schnable JC (2026) Haplotype-rich cis-regulation underlies transcriptomic diversity across the breeding history of maize (Zea mays). doi: 10.64898/2026.02.19.706772 bioRxiv doi: 10.64898/2026.02.19.706772 Preprint
  • ..., Schnable JC, ... (2026) Response to "Letter to Editor: Food as Medicine…". The Journal of Nutrition Accepted
  • Zaremehrjerdi H, Coffey L, Jubery T, Liu H, Turkus J, Linders K, Schnable JC, Schnable PS, Ganapathysubramanian B (2025) MaizeEar-SAM: Zero-shot maize ear phenotyping. arXiv doi: 10.48550/arXiv.2502.13399 Preprint
  • Ji Zhongjie, Ge Y, Schnable JC (2025) Scalable methods for quantifying the stay green ability of corn for yield prediction by using satellite images. agriRxiv doi: 10.31220/agriRxiv.2025.00339 Preprint
  • Li H, Griffis HK, Edwards J, Flint-Garcia S, Hirsch CN, Holland JB, Knoll JE, Lima DC, de Leon N, Murray SC, Singh MP, Schnable JC, Sekhon RS, Thomison P, Thompson A, Wallace JG (2025) Gene-by-Environment Interaction Significantly Drives Bacterial Endophyte Communities in Maize Stalks. bioRxiv doi: 10.64898/2025.12.23.696053 bioRxiv doi: 10.64898/2025.12.23.696053 Preprint
  • Tross MC, Duggan G, Shrestha N, Schnable JC (2024) Models trained to predict differential expression across plant organs identify distal and proximal regulatory regions. doi: 10.1101/2024.06.04.597477 Preprint
  • Shrestha N, Ji Zhongjie, Dai X, Li P, Schnable JC (2026) A sequence-based classifier distinguishes phenotype-associated genes from other gene models in plants Genome Research doi: 10.1101/gr.281802.125 bioRxiv doi: 10.64898/2025.11.30.691407
  • Creach M, Webster B, Newton L, Turkus J, Schnable JC, Thompson AM, VanBuren R (2026) Predicting complex phenotypes using multi-omics data in maize. The Plant Cell doi: 10.1093/plcell/koag185 bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2025.09.30.679283
  • Adak A, DeSalvio AJ, Murray SC, Holland JB, de Leon N, Bohn MO, Edwards J, Ertl D, Hirsch C, Kaeppler S, Knoll JE, Lima DC, Minyo R, Schnable JC, Sekhon RS, Singh MP, Sparks EE, Thompson A, Tuinstra MR, Washburn JD, Weldekidan T (2026) Phenomics-derived temporal maize health and environmental index enhance physiology-informed genomic prediction of yield across environments. Plant Physiology doi: 10.1093/plphys/kiag344
  • Dias H, Sagawa G, Torres-Rodriguez V, Mural RV, Schnable JC, Van Sluys M-A (2026) A sorghum-anchored pan-grass syntenic gene set in grasses. NAR Genomics and Bioinformatics doi: 10.1093/nargab/lqag030 bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2024.11.12.623179
  • Chen Q, Washburn JD, Romay MC, ..., Schnable JC, ..., Weldekidan T, Xu W, de Leon N (2026) Genomes to Fields 2024 maize genotype by environment prediction competition. BMC Research Notes doi: 10.1186/s13104-026-07629-5 (Schnable JC is 27 of 36 authors)
  • Sun G, Araus JL, Schnable JC, Xu J, Nguyen HT, Xu Y, Lu Y (2026) Enviromics and abiotic enviromics: enhancing stress biology and plant resilience breeding. Advanced Science doi: 10.1002/advs.77304
  • Engelhorn J, Snodgrass S, Kok A, Seetharam A, Schneider M, Kiwit T, Singh A, Banf M, Khaipho-Burch M, Runcie D, Camargo V, Torres-Rodriguez JV, Sun G, Stam M, Fiorani F, Schnable JC, Bass H, Hufford M, Stich B, Frommer W, Ross-Ibarra J, Hartwig T (2025) Genetic variation at transcription factor binding sites largely explains phenotypic heritability in maize. Nature Genetics doi: 10.1038/s41588-025-02246-7 bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2023.08.08.551183
  • Singh A, Newton L, Schnable JC, Thompson AM (2025) Unveiling shared genetic regulators for plant architectural and biomass yield traits in sorghum. Journal of Experimental Botany doi: 10.1093/jxb/eraf012 bioRxiv doi: 10.1101/2024.03.13.584802
  • Izere P, Zhao B, Schnable JC, Ge Y, Shi Y (2025) Positioning accuracy of RTK-GNSS-enabled drones and their performance in agricultural crop sensing. Journal of the ASABE doi: 10.13031/ja.16306
  • Ozair F, Adak A, Murray S, ..., Schnable JC, ..., Thompson A, Weldekidan T, Xu W (2025) Phenotypic plasticity in maize grain yield: genetic and environmental insights of response to environmental gradients. The Plant Genome doi: 10.1002/tpg2.70078 (Schnable JC is 11 of 16 authors)
  • Quach TN, Guo M, Nazarenus T, Sato SJ, Wang M, Zhang T, Nersesian N, Ge Z, Ullagaddi C, Yu B, Schnable JC, Clemente TE (2025) In context promoter bashing of the Sorghum bicolor gene models functionally annotated as bundle sheath cell preferred expressing phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase and alanine aminotransferase. Crop Science doi: 10.1002/csc2.70039