Rate My Professor Jeffrey Endelman

Jeffrey Endelman is a Professor in the Department of Plant and Agroecosystem Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he has served since 2013, advancing from Assistant Professor in the Department of Horticulture to Associate Professor in 2019 and then to Professor. He leads the university's potato variety development program, initiated in 1936, releasing new varieties for chip, French fry, and fresh markets, including Red Prairie, Plover Russet, and Portage Russet. Endelman directs national projects funded by USDA NIFA, such as Creating a New Paradigm for Potato Breeding (2019–2023, $6.0M) and Tools for Genomics-Assisted Breeding in Polyploids (2020–2024, $4.3M). His academic background includes a PhD in Crop Science from Washington State University (2011), MS in Plant Science from Utah State University (2009), PhD in Bioengineering from the California Institute of Technology (2005), MA in Physics from the University of California, Santa Barbara (2002), and BS in Chemical Engineering and Applied Mathematics from Northwestern University (2000). Prior to UW-Madison, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Cornell University and USDA-ARS (2011–2013).

Endelman's research specializes in quantitative genetics, developing methods and software for genomics-assisted breeding in autotetraploids, including tools like rrBLUP (2011, over 2300 citations), GWASpoly, LPmerge, ClusterCall, diaQTL, and polyBreedR. His work addresses genetics of periderm-related traits such as skin color, set, and finish, and inbred-hybrid systems in diploid potato. UW-Madison under his leadership became the first North American potato program to implement genomic selection. He has published extensively, with key papers including 'Genomic selection in wheat breeding using genotyping-by-sequencing' (2012, 891 citations), 'Shrinkage estimation of the realized relationship matrix' (2012, 506 citations), and recent works on haplotype reconstruction and QTL mapping in tetraploids. Endelman has received the 2025-26 H.I. Romnes Fellowship, 2019 Vilas Faculty Early Career Investigator Award, 2018 Early Career Scientist Award from the National Association of Plant Breeders, 2017 Excellence in Research Award from UW-Madison Agricultural Research Stations, and 2017 Researcher of the Year from the Wisconsin Potato and Vegetable Growers Association. He serves as Associate Editor for Genetics (2019–), Theoretical & Applied Genetics (2016–), and Plant Genome (2019–), and teaches undergraduate courses on genetically modified crops and graduate courses on molecular and statistical genetics.