page_title: Daniel Gianola
section_title: Biography
hierarchical_section_title: Daniel Gianola / Biography
caption_attribution_description: English: Daniel Gianola China 2017
context_page_description: Daniel Gianola is a geneticist based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, reputed for his contributions in quantitative genetics to the fields of animal and plant breeding. In the early 1980s, Gianola extended best linear unbiased prediction to the non-linear domain for analysis of categorical traits, using the classical threshold model of Sewall Wright. Subsequently, he pioneered the use of Bayesian methodologies and Monte Carlo Markov chain methods in quantitative genetics. He also revived early work by Sewall Wright on structural equation models and cast their application in the context of modern quantitative genetics and statistical methodology. His group in Wisconsin was the first in the world applying non-parametric methods, such as reproducing Kernel Hilbert spaces regression and Bayesian neural networks, to genome-enabled selection in animal breeding, agriculture and whole-genome prediction of complex traits or diseases. Gianola published extensively on thresholds models, Bayesian theory, prediction of complex traits using mixed model methodology, hierarchical Bayesian regression procedures and machine learning techniques.
context_section_description: Gianola was born in Montevideo on 16 May 1947. His father, Gorgias Gianola, was an MIT graduate in mechanical engineering as well as a musician; his mother, Alondra Barberia (known as Alondra Alzua), was a producer of television and radio programs in Uruguay. Gianola spent long periods at the family farm in Melo, Uruguay, and his grandfather (Antonio Gianola, the first livestock auctioneer in Uruguay) was influential in his choice of agricultural science as a career. After graduating in agricultural engineering from Universidad de la Republica at 23 years of age, Gianola moved to the USA to pursue postgraduate studies (MS and Ph.D degrees at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1973 and 1975, working with Professors W. J. Tyler and A. B. Chapman, respectively). He also studied for one year at Cornell University, where he was taught by Professors Charles Henderson, L. D. Van Vleck and S. R. Searle. In 1975-1977 he worked for the World Bank as a population and livestock specialist. From 1978 to 1991 he worked as Assistant Professor, Associate Professor (1981) and Professor (1987) in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Gianola became Professor (1991) in the Department of Animal Sciences and Department of Dairy Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he is now Sewall Wright Emeritus Professor of Animal Breeding and Genetics.  He was also affiliated with the Department of Biostatistics and Medical Informatics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Daniel Gianola is married with the Uruguayan lawyer Graciela Margall and has two children (Magdalena and Daniel Santiago).
caption: Daniel Gianola delivering a conference in  Nanjing, China, 2017
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