Education

M.S., Crop Sciences - Plant Breeding and Genetics , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

B.S., Crop Sciences - Plant Biotechnology and Molecular Biology, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Current Research Areas

Identification of the physiogenetic drivers of soybean yield in response to different growing conditions, maturity groups, growth habits, and diverse germplasm. The overall goal is to identify novel genetic variation for soybean yield and to identify the underlying genetic causation of the observed phenotype response.

Publications/Conference Papers

Honors/Awards

Interdisciplinary Workshop on Merging Crop Modeling and Genetics 2015 - Advanced graduate student travel scholarship

Monsanto Fellows in Plant Breeding, 2014                

Monsanto Company - Corn Pathology Intern, 2010

Golden Opportunity Scholar, 2009

Brief Biography

Outside of work, I’m also a hobby plant breeder with several crops split between the small family farm back in northern Illinois and here in Ames, Iowa. I’m involved in the Agronomy Graduate Student Club and am currently a co-chair for the R.F. Baker Plant Breeding Symposium, which is hosted and completely run by plant breeding graduate students within the department. I like to travel when the opportunity arises; I went on agricultural tours to Brazil, Jamaica, and Belarus as an undergraduate student.