Daniel Gianola

Daniel Gianola (born 1947) is a geneticist based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (US), reputed for his contributions in quantitative genetics to the fields of animal and plant breeding.

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.

Gianola studied agricultural engineering (Ing. Agr.) at the Universidad de la Republica where he graduated in 1970.

He received the MS (1973) and Ph.D. (1975) degrees from the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

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 Shayle 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.

In the early 1980s, Gianola extended best linear unbiased prediction to the non-linear domain for analysis of categorical traits (fertility, survival, resistance to diseases), 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 (i.e., using a massive number of DNA markers) 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.

Gianola has been also involved in whole-genome prediction of skin and bladder cancer in humans.

He has taught extensively in more than twenty countries including recurrent visiting professorships at the Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain), the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (Norway), Aarhus University (Denmark), Georg-August University (Germany) and the Technical University of Munich (Germany).

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).

He has been an Honorary Researcher at the Pasteur Institut de Montevideo since 2016.

In an Editorial contained in a volume published in Gianola's honor in the Journal of Animal Breeding and Genetics (2017), it was stated that "He is probably the one lecturer in animal breeding and genetics, who has the biggest impact on the largest number of followers in the numerous classes and courses he has taught with never-ending energy all across the world."