Jacob is currently a Lecturer for Plant Systematics at Cornell and a Research Associate in the Specht lab. He also works closely with Suzy Strickler and her group at the BTI Computational Biology Center. His interests are primarily at the intersection of evolutionary genomics, phylogenomics, and population genomics. Many of the projects in the lab have started using Oxford Nanopore sequencing for both DNA and RNA, which Jacob has been instrumental in optimizing for a variety of monocot species.
Jacob’s main projects include comparative genomics of Costus associated with transitions between insect and bird pollination, population dynamics and rice diversity in Suriname, as well as working on assembling the genome of Calochortus venustus which poses some unique
challenges with an estimated genome size around 5.5 GB.
You can find more about his work on his website: https://jacoblandis.com/