Dr. Dorrie Main image

Dorrie Main, a native of Scotland raised in the beautiful Highlands, is a Professor of Bioinformatics in the Department of Horticulture at Washington State University. She has a BS in Science and Industrial Studies from Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland, and a M.S. in Information Management  and Ph.D. in Bioscience and Biotechnology from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland. Following postdoctoral studies in plant biological control  at the University of Strathclyde and bioinformatics  at Clemson University, she became Director of Bioinformatics  at CUGI and Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry, at Clemson University, SC, before moving to WSU in 2005 as an Associate Professor.  She enjoys raising her daughter  Ellie (junior bioinformaticist!) in the Pacific North West with it's nice weather, abundance of wildlife and all the outdoor recreational activities to enjoy with family and friends. Meetings over table tennis matches in the lab are her favorite type of meeting.

Dr. Sook Jung image

Sook Jung, a native of South Korea, has co-lead the original team of two (her and Dorrie) since its inception at Clemson University in 2003. She obtained her B.S. in Pharmacy at Pusan National University, then received her M.S. in Biochemistry and Ph.D. in Genetics and Biochemistry from Clemson University. She did postdoctoral research at MIT on yeast genetics and peach bioinformatics at Clemson University. Sook began working at WSU in 2005 as an Assistant Research Professor of Bioinformatics in the Department of Horticulture with a research focus on developing database infrastructure, plant comparative genomics, and all things GDR. She was promoted to Research Associate Professor in 2021. Sook works remotely from Michigan used to be found riding her e-bike all over the state with her two children (junior bioinformaticists - now undergraduates) and husband jogging beside her trying to keep up! She and Dorrie enjoy taking bike tours when visiting different cities for their research.

Ping Zheng image

Ping Zheng, a native of China, joined the team in 2006 as a post doctoral researcher in bioinformatics with a research focus on the development and implementation of sequence analysis pipelines and online tools. She was promoted to a Research Assistant Professor in 2020. She has a B.S. in Medical Plants and a M.S. in Biotechnology from the China Agricultural University, China and a M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Horticulture from Oregon State University. Ping has great taste in design, decor and jewelery and loves to spend time with her and Taeins son Connor (junior bioinformaticist!) when she's not hard at work. Ping is also an excellent cook and plays a mean game of tennis! She and Dorrie won their tennis league in 2009 (completely due to Pings skill)! We are very glad she is part of our team.

Dr. Jodi Humann image

Jodi Humann, a native of central Washington where her family were apple and pear growers, joined the team in 2012 as Program Coordinator and Research Associate.  She manages the Citrus Genome Database, the Pulse Crop Database and the Genome Database for Vaccinium, teaches in the Hort 550 Bioinformatics for Research class, and coordinates program activities (e.g. budgets, hiring, ordering and shouting through the wall that Dorrie is still muted during online meetings). She has a B.S. degrees in Microbiology and in Agricultural Molecular Biology and Genetics from Washington State University and  a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Oregon State University.  She was a postdoctoral researcher with Mike Kahn (Institute of Biological Chemistry, WSU) and Brenda Schroeder (Plant Pathology, WSU) before joining us. She now gets to combine her knowledge of laboratory-based genetics with bioinformatics while making sure everyone gets paid. We are very glad she is part of our team.

Dr. Jing Yu image

Jing Yu, a native of China, joined the team in 2011 as a Postdoctoral Research Associate managing the CottonGen database. She is responsible for collecting and curating cotton genomics, genetics and breeding data and advising on interface development. Jing has B.S. in Mathematics from Beijing Normal University, China, a M.S. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Cornell University, NY and a Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Texas A&M University, TX. The former manager of everything for CottonDB, Jing joined us when we amalgamated the cotton databases into the Tripal database platform for CottonGen. Working remotely from College Station in Texas, Jing enjoys spending time with her beautiful cat Purffie, visiting her son who is a developer (almost a bioinformaticist!) at Microsoft in Seattle and dancing the night away at the annual PAG conference banquet (expect video footage in January 2018). We are very glad she is part of our team.

Chun-Huai image

Chun-Huai Cheng, a native of Taiwan, joined the team in 2010 as a Research Associate working on Tripal database development, sequence analysis and also system and database administration as needed. He has a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Tamkang University,  and a M.S in Biochemistry National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan, as well as a M.S. degree in Bioinformatics from the University of Georgia. After graduating, he worked as a Research Associate at Clemson University for six years before joining us. He is a devoted dad to Matthew (junior bioinformaticist!) and enjoys running. He works  remotely from Taiwan for a part of the year so he can spend more time with his family. We are very glad he is part of our team.

Taein Lee image

Taein Lee, a native of Japan, joined the team as a Research Associate in 2006 focusing on development of Tripal databases, the genome annotation server GenSAS, and the Tripal Breeding Information Management Systems (BIMS). He has a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin, a M.S. in Computer Science  from Oregon State University and a M.S. in Horticulture from Washington State University.  He joined the team in 2006 as a developer and is currently focused on development of the genome annotation server GenSAS, and the Tripal Breeding Information Management Systems (BIMS).  Taein is a devoted dad to he and Pings son, Connor (junior bioinformaticist!) and when not coding like crazy he enjoys playing basketball, running and walking (being pulled) his families Australian Terrier dog, Bear. We are very glad he is part of our team.

Heidi Hough image

Heidi Hough, has degrees in Marketing and Information Systems from the University of Idaho.  She joined the Main Lab in 2015.  When not addressing system needs, Heidi can often be found running along one of the many field roads within the Palouse, dragging her two children along on backpacking adventures in the mountainous regions of the Inland Northwest or knitting sweaters, socks or winter weather accessories.

Katheryn Buble image

Katheryn Buble, originally from the beautiful west coast of British Columbia, Canada, joined the team in 2015 as a Research Associate. She works on creating the TripalMap MapViewer web-based tool for viewing and comparing genetic maps. She holds a B.S. in Computer Science from the University of British Columbia.  Upon graduating, she worked for a major industrial software company building large scale real-time client/server software. Always having an interest in plants, she has a growing collection of exotic, person attacking plants at her desk, which provide additional inspiration for her software development. Katheryn also enjoys reading, playing the piano and cycling in the beautiful outdoors of Washington State. She sometimes works remotely from Seattle. We are very glad she is part of our team.

James Crabb

James Crabb received his B.S. in Horticulture from WSU in December 2009, after which he went to work as an Assistant Vineyard Manager in the Walla Walla Valley AVA. In January 2012, he returned to WSU as a graduate student and received his Ph.D. in Horticulture in May 2016. After deciding that a career in plant research didn’t interest him, James decided to return to WSU once again and work on a Computer Science degree. He joined the Main Lab in March 2018 where he works part-time on the CottonGen database, and started taking classes the Fall semester of 2018. Ultimately, James hopes to help bridge the gap between biological sciences and computer sciences.

Yu Ma image

Yu Ma received a Ph.D from the Department of Horticulture, WSU and is working on genomics, genetics and breeding of peas in collabration with Drs. Rebecca McGee and Clare Coyne from USDA-ARS, Pullman. 

Ousseini Issaka Salia comes to WSU in 2021 from Michigan State University, where he was a postdoctoral researcher in bioinformatics and evolutionary genomics. He earned a Ph.D. in genetics, genomics, ecology, and biodiversity at the University of Montpellier, in France.  His research interests include genetics, genomics, ecology, biodiversity, evolution, genomic selection, plant breeding, bioinformatics, next-generation sequencing, and computational biology.  At WSU, Dr. Ousseini is mainly working on the FFAR and WSDA pea protein projects in collaboration with Drs. Yu Ma, Rebecca McGee, Clare Coyne and Dorrie Main.

Puneet Kaur Mangat, a native of India, has a Ph.D. in Plant and Soil Science from Texas Tech University. She joined Main Lab in 2021 as Postdoctoral Research Associate and will be working on genetics, genomics and breeding of peas in collaboration with Drs. Yu Ma, Dorrie Main, Rebecca McGee and Clare Coyne.