Dr Peter Crisp is an expert in crop genomics, epigenomics and molecular genetics. He leads a research group in the School of Agriculture and Food Science. His research group seeks to understand the contribution of epigenetics to heritable phenotypic variation in crop plants, focusing on cereals including barley, sorghum, wheat and maize. This includes the development of methods to harness epigenetic variation for crop improvement; understanding the role of epigenetics in stress responses and using innovative epigenomic approaches to distill large genomes down to the relatively small fraction of regions that are functionally important for trait variation. Research in the Crisp Lab spans both wet lab and computational biology providing a powerful platform to integrate genetic, genomic and biotechnological approaches.