Rate My Professor Patrick Schnable

Patrick Schnable is the C.F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor, Iowa Corn Endowed Chair in Genetics, and Director of the Plant Sciences Institute in the Department of Agronomy at Iowa State University. A prominent figure in Agricultural and Veterinary Science, he earned a B.S. in Agronomy from Cornell University in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Cytogenetics from Iowa State University in 1986. He conducted postdoctoral research as an NIH Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Köln, Germany, from 1986 to 1988. Schnable joined Iowa State University as Assistant Professor in 1988, was promoted to Associate Professor in 1994, and to Professor in 1998. He has held numerous leadership roles, including founding Director of the Center for Plant Genomics since 1999, Baker Professor of Agronomy from 2007 to 2013, and Baker Scholar of Agricultural Entrepreneurship since 2014. Additional positions include Associate Chair and Chair of the Interdepartmental Genetics Graduate Program from 2002 to 2006 and Director of the Center for Carbon Capturing Crops from 2007 to 2013.

Schnable directs an interdisciplinary research program in genetics, molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics, and phenomics, with a focus on maize biology and the development of genomic tools and resources. He is the author of more than 250 peer-reviewed publications, cited approximately 35,000 times, achieving an h-index of 94. Key publications include 'The B73 maize genome: complexity, diversity, and dynamics' (Science, 2009), 'Progress toward understanding heterosis in crop plants' (Annual Review of Plant Biology, 2013), 'The rf2 nuclear restorer gene of male-sterile T-cytoplasm maize' (Science, 1996), and 'Genome-wide discovery and characterization of maize long non-coding RNAs' (Genome Biology, 2014). His innovations are reflected in multiple patents, such as those for nuclear restorer genes and QTLs regulating maize ear productivity traits. Schnable has co-founded companies including Data2Bio LLC and serves on scientific advisory boards. Honors include Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2010), Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2025), Chang Jiang Scholar at China Agricultural University (2009), and Iowa State University's Outstanding Achievement in Research Award (2010). He has chaired the Maize Genetics Executive Committee and the American Society of Plant Biologists' Science Policy Committee, and co-leads the Genomes to Fields Initiative while serving as PI of the Agricultural Genomes to Phenomes Initiative.