Shizhong Xu is Professor of Genetics and Statistics at University of California Riverside. He earned a BS degree in Animal Sciences at Shenyang Agricultural University (China), a MS degree in Quantitative Genetics at Northeast Agricultural University (China) and a PhD in Quantitative Genetics at Purdue University. He teaches two courses at UCR: Statistics for Life Sciences (STAT231B) and Quantitative Genetics (BPSC148). His research covers theoretical quantitative genetics, biostatistics and statistical genomics. He specializes in linear mixed models, generalized linear mixed models and Bayesian analysis. He published about 170 technical journal articles and two textbooks (including this one). He served as associate editors for journals of Heredity, Genetic Research, Molecular Biology and Evolution, and International Journal of Plant Genomics. He currently serves as associate editors for The Crop Journal and Forestry Research.