Department of Animal & Dairy Sciences 🐄🧬
Peñagaricano Lab
Developing and applying statistical & computational methods to dissect the genetic architecture of economically relevant traits in livestock.
Principal Investigator
Francisco Peñagaricano
Francisco is originally from Uruguay, where he earned his B.S. degrees in Biology and Biochemistry (2005) and his M.S. in Animal Science (2010) from Universidad de la República. He continued his graduate studies at UW-Madison, earning his M.S. in Statistics (2014) and Ph.D. in Animal Science (2014). From 2015 to 2020, he was a faculty member at the University of Florida. His research combines large phenotypic datasets with high-throughput genomic technologies and advanced statistical methods to understand the connection between genome and phenotype.
Our Team
A diverse, international group of researchers passionate about quantitative genomics
Postdoctoral Researchers
Gabriel Zayas
Quantitative Genetics & Genomics
Afees Abiola Ajasa
Quantitative Genetics & Statistical Genomics
Graduate Students
Agustín Chasco
ABS Global Genetics Intern (Summer 2025)
Negin Sheybani
Zoetis Genetics Intern (Summer 2025)
Research Staff
Dérick Cantarelli Rösler
Emily Tabor
André Aguiar Zambon
Research Focus Areas
Core expertise spanning quantitative genomics and computational biology
Software & Tools
Open-source tools developed by our lab for the livestock research community
EnrichKit
A comprehensive multi-omics tool for livestock research. Maps genomic coordinates to gene features and annotates gene lists for functional characterization using biological databases.
Read Paper →greenfeedr
An R-package for processing and reporting GreenFeed data. Helps researchers and farmers process enteric methane and CO₂ emission data from dairy cattle.
Read Paper →Recent Publications
Selected publications from 2025–2026
- FL Guinan, RH Fourdraine, F Peñagaricano, and KA Weigel (2026). Genetic parameters for alternative resilience phenotypes in Holstein cows. JDS Communications 7: 40-45.
- FL Guinan, RH Fourdraine, F Peñagaricano, and KA Weigel (2025). Dairy cow resilience: data driven detection and quantification of perturbations using daily milk weights. Journal of Dairy Science 108: 11173-11185.
- L Liu and F Peñagaricano (2025). EnrichKit: a multi-omics tool for livestock research. Frontiers in Genetics 16: 1573374.
- G Martinez Boggio, P Lutz, M Harrison, KA Weigel, and F Peñagaricano (2025). greenfeedr: an R-package for processing and reporting GreenFeed data. JDS Communications 6: 227-230.
- J Laporta, B Dado-Senn, A Guadagnin, L Liu, and F Peñagaricano (2025). Pre-weaning heat stress alters liver transcriptome and DNA methylation in dairy calves. Journal of Dairy Science 108: 4390-4402.
Interested in Joining Our Team?
We are always seeking talented and highly motivated graduate students and postdocs who wish to study animal quantitative genetics and genomics. Our group values diversity, collaboration, and scientific rigor.