Rate My Professor Laura Shannon

Laura Shannon is an Associate Professor of potato breeding, genetics, and genomics in the Department of Horticultural Science at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She is a population and quantitative geneticist by training who applies her expertise to elucidate potato diversity, the complex nature of autotetraploid genomics, and the development of new potato varieties for Minnesota growers. Shannon earned a B.A. in Biology and Anthropology from Grinnell College in 2007 and a Ph.D. in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin in 2013. Her postdoctoral research was conducted in the Department of Biomedical Sciences at Cornell University and the Department of Horticulture at the University of Wisconsin. She joined the University of Minnesota in 2017, where she leads the potato breeding program, continuing work on varieties such as Polaris Gold released in 2023.

Shannon's research encompasses computational genetics approaches to potato breeding, genomic prediction using multispectral data from unmanned aerial vehicles, and image analysis tools to quantify potato storage defects. She directs several projects, including Chip Breeding for the National Chip Processing Trial at UMN, New Fresh Market Potatoes for Minnesota, Exploring the Impact of Potato Genetic Variability on Rhizosphere Microbiome Dynamics, and Annotation and Analysis of the Alfalfa Genome. Her work contributes to annual potato breeding progress reports for the Minnesota Department of Agriculture and aligns with UN Sustainable Development Goals including Zero Hunger, Good Health and Well-being, Climate Action, and Life on Land. Key publications include "Targeted genotyping-by-sequencing of potato and data analysis with R/polyBreedR" (Plant Genome, 2025), "Investigating US potato farmers’ preferences for true potato seeds" (Journal of Agriculture and Food Research, 2025), "Leveraging unmanned aerial vehicle derived multispectral data for improved genomic prediction in potato" (Plant Genome, 2025), "Polyploidy in potatoes: challenges and possibilities for climate resilience" (Trends in Genetics, 2025), and "Towards Stewardship of Wild Species and Their Domesticated Counterparts: A Case Study in Northern Wild Rice" (Ecology and Evolution, 2025). She supervises graduate students in Applied Plant Sciences and participates in plant breeding centers.