Jay Laurence Lush (January 3, 1896 – May 22, 1982) was a pioneering animal geneticist who made important contributions to livestock breeding. He is sometimes known as the father of modern scientific animal breeding. Lush received National Medal of Science in 1968 and the Wolf Prize in 1979. Lush was introduced to mathematics and genetics during his B.Sc. studies of animal husbandry at the Kansas State Agricultural College (now Kansas State University). He completed his M.Sc. in 1918 at Kansas State, and his Ph.D. in genetics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (1922).