Katherine is a trained quantitative geneticist interested in investigating the underlying diversity that shapes a species evolutionary history and adaptation to different environments and treatments. She began studying Genetics under Trudy Mackay at North Carolina State University, where they used Drosophila as a model system to study behavior.

Currently, she is working with Eduard Akhunov at Kansas State University to explore the genetic diversity of the hexaploid wheat genome, including developing a haplotype map resource that will be very valuable to the wheat community to use in genome wide association mapping studies and breeding programs. They are also interested in exploring the selection events that coincided with wheat’s polyploidization and domestication history to learn what role polyploidy shares in maintaining and exploiting existing diversity in wheat.

"The IGWSC award provided a wonderful opportunity for me to present our research to a broad audience and begin to be recognized in the wheat community, where I am relatively new. The networking that accompanied the IGWSC award will definitely provide many useful contacts for future collaborations and hopefully assist me in gaining a foothold in the wheat community."

Katherine hopes to continue to improve community resources within the wheat community to aid in understanding genotype-phenotype interactions, which can provide useful genetic material adaptable to certain environments (i.e. drought and pathogen resistance) to increase global wheat production in the future.