Réka Howard is an Associate Professor and Director of Consulting in the Department of Statistics and a Courtesy Professor in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture at University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She received a PhD in Statistics and Plant Breeding from Iowa State University. Her research interests are in statistical consulting, statistical method development for genomic prediction, and the application of statistical methods in plant breeding. Her recent work focuses on the optimization of statistical methods for genomic prediction, and model development for genotype by environmental interaction for genomic prediction. Dr Howard teaches statistical consulting and statistical methods for BS, MS and PhD students in statistics, agronomy, animal science, engineering and related fields.