Education

B.A., Biology, Cornell University, 2008
Ph.D., Plant Biology, University of California-Berkeley, 2012

James Schnable is a Professor in the Department of Agronomy & Horticulture at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln where his work focuses on maize and sorghum genomics, genetics, and genotype by environment interaction. Schnable a founder of three startups commercializing bioinformatic, quantitative genetic, or digital agricultural technologies and have previously worked as a technology lead at at X (Google’s moonshot lab). His research is currently supported by the US Department of Agriculture, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Nebraska Corn Growers and his former graduate students and postdocs are employed at major seed companies, biotech startups, and as faculty members at eleven universities is four countries. 

For details on specific ongoing research projects in the lab and bios for current and former lab members, please visit schnablelab.org.

Recognition

• Outstanding Postdoc Mentor Award from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Office of Graduate Studies (2024).
• Fellow, Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship (2023).
• Fellow, PhenoRob Cluster of Excellence, Germany (2022).
• Early Career Award from the American Society of Plant Biologists (2019).
• Early Career Award from the North American Plant Phenotyping Network (2019).
• Marcus Rhoades Award for Maize Genetics (2018).
• Junior Faculty Excellence in Research Award (2016).

Publications

Google Scholar publication list

Selected from 175 publications 2010-2025

• Torres-Rodriguez JV, Li D, Turkus J, Newton L, Davis J, Lopez-Corona L, Ali W, Sun G, Mural RV, Grzybowski M, Zamft B, Thompson AM, Schnable JC (2024) “Population-level gene expression can repeatedly link genes to functions in maize.” The Plant Journal doi: 10.1111/tpj.16801 (Awarded best original research article of The Plant Journal, 2024)
• Grzybowski M, Mural RV, Xu G, Turkus, J, Yang Jinliang, Schnable JC (2023) “A common resequencing-based genetic marker dataset for global maize diversity.” The Plant Journal doi: 10.1111/tpj.16123 Cover Article, March 2023 Research Highlight in The Plant Journal doi: 10.1111/tpj.16123
• Chen J, Wang Z, Tan K, Huang W, Shi J, Li T, Hu J, Wang K, Xin B, Zhao H, Song W, Hufford MB, Schnable JC, Ware DH, Jin W, Lai J (2023) “A complete telomere-to-telomere assembly of the maize genome.” Nature Genetics doi: 10.1038/s41588-023-01419-6
• Sun G, Wase N, Su S, Jenkins J, Zhou B, Torres-Rodriguez JT … Foltz A (17th of 26 authors) … Sigmon B, Yu B, Obata T, Schmutz J, Schnable JC (2022) “Genome of Paspalum vaginatum and the role of trehalose mediated autophagy in increasing maize biomass” Nature Communications doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-35507-8
• Meng X, Liang Z, Dai X, Zhang Y, Mahboub S, Ngu DW, Roston RL, Schnable JC (2021) “Predicting transcriptional responses to cold stress across plant species.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences doi: 10.1073/pnas.2026330118