The mission of the program in ANIMAL BREEDING AND GENETICS at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is to discover, integrate, disseminate and apply knowledge about the genetics of animals as a basis for sustainable improvement in the animal populations important to the lives of people throughout New York State, the nation and the world. The Animal Breeding and Genetics Group consists of faculty, staff and graduate students dedicated to the genetic improvement of populations of domestic animal species, both nationally and internationally. The emphasis of the teaching, research and extension programs of this group is genetic analysis based on field data provided by the animal industries. The group provides biannual genetic evaluations (estimates of genetic merit) of dairy cattle to ~12,000 producers in the Northeast and of Simmental beef cattle to similar numbers of US & Canadian Simmental breeders. For many years, the group has provided leadership in developing the statistical methodologies necessary for genetic evaluation based on field data. Many of these methodologies are now standard and used world-wide, to a large extent by students trained at Cornell. Advances in genetics combined with advances in computing and statistics require and allow continual improvement in these methodologies.
Members of the group have won 11 awards (eight research; one extension; two teaching) from national organizations plus one award for excellence in teaching from State University of New York.