Jenna is an Assistant Professor of Vegetable Breeding and Genetics at Clemson University’s Pee Dee Research and Education Center, where she leads the university’s vegetable legume breeding program. Her research focuses on the genetic improvement of butter beans (lima bean) and southern pea (cowpea) for the southeastern United States, with particular emphasis on heat tolerance, seed nutritional quality, and pest and disease resistance. Alongside traditional and genomics-assisted breeding approaches, her program develops and applies near-infrared spectroscopy methods and breeding data management tools to accelerate phenotyping throughput and improve reproducibility and accessibility. A central goal of her program is supporting the long-term viability of small and mid-sized vegetable operations in South Carolina and the broader region through the development of locally adapted, commercially relevant germplasm.
Jenna received her B.S. in Horticulture from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her Ph.D. in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Cornell University, where she worked with Dr. Mike Gore on the genetics and genomics of nutritional quality traits in sweet corn and the application of near-infrared spectroscopy for phenotyping in cassava. She conducted postdoctoral research with Dr. Allison Miller at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and Dr. Brandon Schlautman at The Land Institute, developing and evaluating new selection methods for perennial domestication breeding programs.
Search for Jenna Hershberger's papers on the Publications page