Dr. Katy Martin Rainey is an Associate Professor of Soybean Genetics and Breeding in the Agronomy Department at Purdue University. She received her PhD in the field of plant breeding from Cornell University. Dr. Rainey leads an applied soybean breeding program focused on germplasm and variety development, and her lab integrates diverse data to demonstrate innovative approaches to soybean breeding.
Her research goals include describing traits that can be measured using precision and high-throughput phenotyping from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). She also explores how to predict and maximize genetic gain of complex traits using mixed linear statistical models, resulting in innovative analyses of large data sets that combine phenotypes, pedigree information, and genome-wide markers. In support of data-driven selection generally in crop improvement, her scholarly work includes development of analytical tools for image analysis and phenomic inference from UAV. Her lab also addresses optimizing soybean seed composition, and she has released food-grade soybean varieties.
Rainey is the Director of the Purdue Soybean Center and co-founder of Progeny Drone, Inc. She teaches genetics, plant genetics, plant breeding, advanced plant breeding and statistical genetics.