About me

Luca Comai

Dragon Tail Peak viewed from above
 Asgaard Pass, the Enchantments, WA.
In the foreground: the Ploid. 

I am a professor of plant biology at the University of California Davis. My lab is at the UC Davis Genome Center, where we work on plant genetics and genomics. You can find more about our scientific work by looking up my Google Scholar profile. Also, a page in this blog has my CV.

I like research and I also like to teach. I teach BIS101, the upper level genetics course at UC Davis. Before that, I taught introductory biology both at UC Davis and at the University of Washington where I was on the faculty from 1990 to 2006. I also teach plant genetics and genomics at the graduate level.

I was born and raised in the Italian Alps. I went to graduate school to the United States when gas was very, very cheap. I live in Davis, CA with several undisciplined and untrained eukaryotic organisms: a dog, a cat, my wife, and two teenagers. 

I do not like ceremonial activities, committee meetings, casino gambling, watching TV, crowded places, and multiple other things. I like nature, moderate physical activity, mendelian ratios, DNA, bioinformatics, programming, mutants, flowers, evolution, many scientists, many non-scientists, good food, hot food, lager beer, wine, most products of fermentation, things that smell good.