Matthew Rubin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Biology
Education
Ph.D., Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY, USA
M.S. Biology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI, USA
B.S. Cell and Molecular Biology, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Oshkosh, WI, USA
Research Interests
I am a quantitative geneticist with a focus on understanding how plants perceive and
respond to variable environmental conditions and the role of trait variation and covariation
on the response to natural and artificial selection in natural and breeding populations.
Much of the phenotypic variation segregating in populations is quantitative in nature,
and results from complex genetic architectures. Moreover, phenotypic expression is
dependent on the environment, genotype-by-environment interactions, and trait covariation.
My research aims to understand the genetic and abiotic environmental factors that
influence trait expression, the developmental mechanisms that perceive and integrate
these environmental signals at the whole organism level, and the amount of phenotypic
variation and plasticity present for a given trait. I address these research questions
using both model plant systems and long-lived perennial plant species. Current work
includes the development of phenomic selection as a tool to accelerate the breeding
of perennial plant species, characterizing variation in leaf reflectance traits and
understanding the genetic basis of cold responses in plants.
Labs and Facilities
We use a combination of experiments where plants are grown under controlled conditions (greenhouse and growth chamber) and at local field sites to characterize variation in a wide range of traits and to understand the genetic basis of these traits.