Rate My Professor Jianming Yu

Jianming Yu holds the position of Professor and Pioneer Distinguished Chair in Maize Breeding in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University, serving in Agricultural and Veterinary Science and as Director of the Raymond F. Baker Center for Plant Breeding since August 2023. He earned a B.S. in Agronomy from Northwest A&F University in 1994, an M.S. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Kansas State University in 2000, and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from the University of Minnesota in 2003. Following postdoctoral positions at the University of Minnesota from 2003 to 2004 and at Cornell University from 2004 to 2006, Yu served as Assistant Professor and Associate Professor at Kansas State University from 2006 to 2012 before joining Iowa State University in 2013, where he advanced to full Professor.

Yu's research integrates quantitative genetics, genomics, plant breeding, molecular genetics, and statistics to dissect complex traits and improve crops, focusing on maize and sorghum while collaborating on rice, wheat, oat, peanut, and soybean. Key contributions include identification of the Shattering1 gene and homologs in cereal domestication, sorghum Tannin1 and Tannin2 genes, and advancements in phenotypic plasticity, genome-wide association studies, and genomic selection. Influential publications feature Yu, X., et al. (2016). Genomic prediction contributing to a promising global strategy to turbocharge gene banks. Nature Plants 2:16150; Li, X., et al. (2018). Genomic and environmental determinants and their interplay underlying phenotypic plasticity. PNAS 115:6679-6684; and Yu, J., et al. (2006). A unified mixed-model method for association mapping that accounts for multiple levels of relatedness. Nature Genetics 38:203-208. His accolades include election as Fellow of the Crop Science Society of America in 2018, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2018, Iowa State University Mid-Career Achievement in Research Award in 2017, Raymond and Mary Baker Agronomic Excellence Award in 2018, and Emerging Leaders in Applied Plant Sciences Award from the University of Minnesota in 2014. Yu teaches graduate courses in advanced plant breeding and leads initiatives enhancing genomic prediction and genetic resource utilization in agriculture.