Description of current research:

My current research includes work to develop software for association mapping with a taret audience of plant breeders and plant geneticists.  To date, this effort has produced jGLiM, a Java library for formulating and solving general linear models.  This library is part of TASSEL, a software package for association, evolutionary, and linkage analysis.  I have also been involved in the development and implementation of GDPDM (Genotype and Phenotype Data Model) which is a data model for storage of phenotype and genotype data in a form which can be readily used for association analysis.

My research also includes work on the use of the Affymetrix wheat chip, a gene expression microarray, to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in elite US wheat germplasm.  That research, which is in its early stages, involves developing and comparing analysis methods in order to improve both the accuracy and power of existing methods.  It will be using data from other species with known SNPs, sequencing, and a wheat mapping population to verify results.