Ph.D Student

Plant Breeding and Plant Genetics

June 2018 – Present

Project

The Naked Barley Project

Overview

From Heyworth, Illinois

Major in agronomy from Iowa State, 2018

Minor in genetics from Iowa State, 2018

I have always had a strong interest in the intersection of agriculture and genetics. Dr. Gutierrez has a wonderful lab that does a lot of work in this field. Although I had never worked with small grains before (my work in undergrad was with maize) I was looking forward to the new experience.

I work on production and improvement of organic hulls, or naked, barley. Barley in the US is primarily hulled, and available naked germplasm is not adapted for the environments it is grown in. My project focuses on improving naked lines through a combination of phenotypic selection and genomic methods such as GWAS and genomic selection.

Research Interests

• Plant Breeding
• Quantitative Genetics

Funding Source

The Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI)