About me
I'm an MSc student in agronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, specialising in plant breeding and genetics. My research uses simulation. I build breeding schemes in AlphaSimR and follow how populations change under them. I also model how genotypes respond to different environments.
Before Nebraska I studied agricultural biotechnology at KNUST in Ghana. That's where I started writing software for research, from Linkmapper for teaching linkage maps to co-developing qrlabelr, which prints QR code labels for field trials.
I still build things outside my degree. Colony Counter was developed simply to make counting colonies easier on a phone. The longest write-up here is about FF Mod Studio, tools I made to take a 2003 game apart and put it back together.
I like to play video games during my free time, and have a keen interest in making mine, which is why you'll come across some reverse-engineering projects on this website as I try to understand how everything works. I also like to listen to music, with my favourites being from the time I wasn't even born till the time I was still too young to own a phone.
Experience
Aug 2024 to now
Graduate Research Assistant
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Genotype-by-environment interaction, through statistical models and simulation. I split genetic from environmental variance with mixed models in ASReml and Echidna. With AlphaSimR and APSIM Next Gen I design breeding strategies and track genetic variance and selection response over generations.
Nov 2023 to Jun 2024
Technical Operations Lead
Chaku Foods, Ghana
Field data for a food startup. I built the KoboToolbox form we used for farmer feedback and field monitoring and analysed what came in. On farm visits I mapped the farms.
Sep 2022 to Oct 2023
Teaching Assistant
KNUST, Kumasi
Helped final-year students build machine learning models that estimate soil moisture and hydraulic conductivity from other soil properties, then write up the results.
Sep to Nov 2021
Intern
CSIR Soil Research Institute, Ghana
Physicochemical analysis of soil and plant samples, from sample intake and labelling to preparing calibration standards.
Education
2024 to now
MSc Agronomy, plant breeding and genetics
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Simulation-based breeding and genotype-by-environment interaction. GPA 3.91 out of 4.00 so far.
2018 to 2022
BSc Agricultural Biotechnology, First Class Honours
Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi
Cumulative weighted average 74.27 out of 100. My final-year project with a team of colleagues was Linkmapper, a web app for teaching linkage mapping.
Publications
Kena, A., Ogoe, E., Cruet-Burgos, C., Agyare, R., Adoma, N., Annor, B., Raymundo, R. and Morris, G. (2024).
Gates Open Research 8, 28.
Rice, B., Ogoe, E., Charles, J. R., Melgar, E., Marla, S. R., Felderhoff, T., Fritz, A., Morris, G. and Pressoir, G. (2026).
Flywheel genomics: simultaneous trait discovery and genetic gain in plant breeding
bioRxiv preprint. Submitted to Plant Communications.
Research software
Open-source tools from my time at KNUST.
2021 to 2022
2021 to 2022
Clusnalyst
Team lead
A Shiny app for clustering molecular and trait data, for teaching systematics. Now an R package.
2021 to 2022
qrlabelr
Co-developer
An R package and Shiny app that makes print-ready QR code labels for field trials. It has a paper, below.
2021 to 2022
Genaxy
Developer
A set of tools for processing genetic data.
Skills
Quantitative genetics
- R
- SAS
- ASReml
- Echidna
- Genomic prediction
- G×E analysis
Simulation
- AlphaSimR
- APSIM Next Gen
Genomics
- GWAS
- PLINK
- TASSEL
- LDAK
Machine learning
- Python
- TensorFlow
- Keras
- Random forests
- XGBoost
- YOLO
- Image analysis
Software and computing
- Bash
- Linux
- HPC (SLURM)
- Git
- Quarto
- Shiny
- Kotlin
- C++
Languages
- English, fluent
- Twi, native
Funding
2024 to 2026
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Scholarship
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
2020 to 2022
Ghana Scholarship Secretariat
KNUST
2019 to 2020
Kingdom Books and Stationery Bursary
KNUST
Involvement
Oct 2025
UNL-Bayer Hackathon 2025
Team BioAgriNerds. Three of us ranked maize lines for advancement by genomic prediction.
2025 to now
Seminar Committee Chair
Agronomy and Horticulture Students Association, UNL
2024 to 2025
Advertising subcommittee
Nebraska Plant Sciences Symposium, UNL
2021 to 2022
IT and Media Committee Head
Association of Agricultural Biotechnology Students, KNUST
Seasons
All of this, and a little more, is in my CV.
Download CV