Ellie Taagen
Quantitative Genetics | Meiotic Recombination | Cornell University
RESEARCH INTERESTS
-
Quantitative Genetics 🧬
-
Data Science 👩💻
-
Molecular Biology 🧪
-
Food Security 🌾
Global food security and sustainable food production are some of the most pressing issues of our time. The importance of enhancing the productivity and adaptability of crops motivates me to apply my quantitative genetics, data science, and molecular biology skillset to uncovering the mechanisms driving desirable phenotypes.
My doctoral dissertation research embodies these interests and motivations, focused on the biological constraints of meiotic recombination in a plant breeding context, and the potential to modify recombination to enhance genetic gain. I am leveraging traditional population development strategies, along with cutting-edge tools in genomics and transcriptomics, bioinformatics and simulation methods to better understand the landscape of causal variation and prediction-based breeding decisions. This research is supported by the USDA NIFA WheatCAP.