Karl Schmid

Karl Schmid is a W3 Professor of Crop Plant Biodiversity and Breeding Informatics at the University of Hohenheim's Institute of Plant Breeding, Seed Science and Population Genetics within the College of Agricultural Sciences. His research integrates evolutionary genetics, population genomics, and machine learning to address agricultural challenges.

• Ph.D. in Biology, University of Munich (1996)
• Postdoctoral Research, Cornell University (1997-1999)
• Emmy-Noether Research Group, Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology (2000-2006)
• Group Leader, Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics (2006-2008)
• Professor of Genetics, Swedish Agricultural University (2008)

His research focuses on crop biodiversity conservation, evolutionary genetics of plant pathogens, and breeding informatics applications. Current work leverages deep learning for phenotyping (quinoa panicles, barley genomics) and analyzes pathogen evolution (Exserohilum turcicum in maize). His team actively develops computational tools like GGoutlieR for geo-genetic pattern detection.

Recent publications demonstrate strong trends in applying AI to agricultural genomics, particularly in quinoa improvement and pathogen surveillance. His group leads the EU H2020 INVITE project on molecular markers in plant variety protection and organizes international symposia like the 2024 Quinoa Symposium at Hohenheim.

• Head of Crop Biodiversity and Breeding Informatics Group
• Principal Investigator, EU H2020 INVITE project
• Organizer, International Quinoa Symposium 2024