Pat Schnable is a distinguished professor at Iowa State University where he holds an endowed chair in genetics and is an endowed scholar in agricultural entrepreneurship. Schnable directs ISU's Plant Sciences Institute that is fostering collaborations among plant scientists, engineers and computational scientists.

Schnable received his BS from Cornell University and was awarded a PhD in Plant Breeding and Genetics from Iowa State University. Prior to his faculty appointment Schnable conducted post-doctoral research at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding in Köln, Germany.

Schnable manages a research program that emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches to understanding plant biology. His own expertise is in the areas of genetics, molecular biology, genomics, bioinformatics and phenomics but he collaborates with researchers in diverse fields, including agricultural, computer, industrial, and mechanical engineering and statistics. His scientific investigations of the maize genome have been wide-ranging and he has developed and/or deployed a number of important genomic tools and resources. He is the author of >240 peer-reviewed publications that have been cited ~30,400 times and has accrued an h-index of 88 (Google Scholar). Reflecting his interest in computational approaches to biology, he has an Erdös number of 3.

Schnable is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, serves as consulting editor for PLoS Genetics (Impact Factor 5.9), is the past chair of the American Society of Plant Biology's Science Policy Committee and of the Maize Genetics Executive Committee. He is also the co-lead of the Genomes to Fields Initiative.

Schnable has co-founded several startup companies and serves on the scientific advisory boards of several others.