Ash Yow is a Postdoctoral Associate for the USDA-ARS Genomic and Bioinformatics Research Unit. She earned her M.S. and PhD degrees in Horticultural Science from North Carolina State University. As a student, she developed a strong set of wet lab skills and self-learned computational skills for biological data analysis.
During her M.S., she focused on identifying candidate fungal and plant genes related to mummy berry disease infection in blueberry and published the first publicly available genome assembly for Monilinia vaccinii-corymbosi, the causal agent of mummy berry disease. During her PhD, she focused on developing and improving genomic resources for pineapple breeding programs, with a focus on proteolytic enzymes and cold-induced precocious flowering. The improved genome assembly that she published for a commercial, fresh-market pineapple variety has been a significant contribution to the pineapple research and breeding community. Currently, she works on developing genomic resources for economically valuable, yet under-studied crops, including multiple turfgrass species and hybrids, okra, and citrus rootstock varieties and their hybrids. She has many career interests and seeks out positions with "orphaned" research projects that need to be finished after a student graduates or that do not fit into anyone else's schedule or research niche within the lab.
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