Carolyn J. Lawrence received the BA degree in biology from Hendrix College in 1996, the MS degree in biology from Texas Tech University in 1997, and the PhD degree in botany from the University of Georgia in 2003. From 2003 to 2005, she was a postdoctoral associate for Volker Brendel at Iowa State University, Ames. She is currently a research geneticist for the USDA-ARS and serves as the director of the MaizeGDB project (http://www.maizegdb.org).