Brandon Monier’s research interests lie in bioinformatics, software development, and education. Currently based at the Buckler Lab at Cornell University, he is working on methods to efficiently assemble and annotate several hundred wild grass relatives of maize and sorghum through the PanAnd Project. Monier is also the creator and maintainer of various R packages and web applications, including rTASSEL, an R front-end for TASSEL.

Before coming to Cornell, his research focused on bioinformatics approaches to microbial interactions in next-generation lignocellulosic feedstocks and their impact on biomass development. Additionally, he has studied cytotypic variation and established tools for downstream functional genomics analyses in prairie cordgrass, a potential next-generation biofuel.

Monier’s role on the genomics team at ILCI includes working with Centers of Innovation to develop genomic analytical pipelines to be used with cloud computing, and improving TASSEL to work with plant breeders across the ILCI network.