Jonathan F. Wendel

Jonathan F. Wendel is Distinguished Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Iowa State University. His research focuses on mechanisms underlying the means by which flowering plant genomes and phenotypes diversify, with a special focus on the phenomenon of genome doubling, or polyploidy. His publications focus on the cotton genus (Gossypium), in which two diploid and two polyploid species were each independently domesticated thousands of years ago. This natural evolutionary and early human history provide a model framework for exploring the comparative basis of domestication, the origin of form and of diversity in nature, and the evolutionary consequences of genome doubling. Wendel is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Distinguished Fellow of the Botanical Society of America and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.