Jeekin was born and raised in the college town of Auburn, Alabama. Being raised nearby a land grant university, he was constantly exposed to agriculture and academics. In 2013, he obtained a B.S. degree in Horticulture from the Department of Horticulture at Auburn University. He continued his education at Auburn Univeristy, where he obtained a M.S. in Horticulture in 2015. In 2021, Jeekin obtained a Ph.D in Horticulture from the Department of Horticultural Sciences at Texas A&M University. From 2021 to 2024, Dr. Lau joined Dr. Oscar Riera-Lizarazu’s group as a postdoctoral research associate developing and applying biocomputational methods and tools for polyploid genetic analysis. Dr. Lau worked on various projects to better understand the genetic architecture of traits of interest, including seminal contributions on the genetics of resistance to rose rosette disease in tetraploid roses (doi: https//doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.916231), the most important disease afflicting roses. Dr. Lau also made other important contributions, including the development of computational pipelines. Dr. Lau is now a Research Horticulturist with the USDA-ARS in Byron, GA.