Jay Laurence Lush

Jay Laurence Lush (1896 to 1982) was a pioneering animal geneticist sometimes known as the father of modern scientific animal breeding. He advocated breeding livestock based on quantitative statistics and genetic information rather than the subjective appearance of an animal, and his 1937 textbook Animal Breeding Plans greatly influenced animal breeding worldwide. From 1930 to 1966 he was the Charles F. Curtiss Distinguished Professor in Agriculture at Iowa State University, and he received the National Medal of Science in 1968 and the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 1979.