I'm anticipating graduating Autumn 2025
Research Focus:
I am working with Dr. Clay Sneller on breeding soft red winter wheat using a combination of genomic selection and doubled haploids. The wheat breeding program seeks to improve plant height, maturity, yield, test weight, and resistance to Fusarium Head Blight, but generating new lines using the traditional inbreeding method is time-consuming and takes around five years, which delays field testing and commercial release. By using a small set of doubled haploid individuals as the training population for our genomic selection prediction model, the goal is to create a more expedient breeding scheme that also minimizes the costs incurred from developing DH plants.
Why OSU?
My mother got her PhD in neuroscience here back in the 90s, so I was already well aware of Ohio State's reputation for excellent research. However, this department really stood out to me with its sense of community and culture of cooperation. Grad students in STEM sometimes have a reputation for being overworked and undercompensated, but here I knew that I would be able to get an excellent education and research experience while also making good connections and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
