Gregor Mendel (1822–1884) was an Austrian biologist, mathematician, and Augustinian friar who is widely recognized as the founder of modern genetics. He conducted pioneering experiments on pea plants between 1856 and 1863, through which he discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance, now known as Mendel's Laws of Heredity. Mendel demonstrated how traits are passed down from one generation to the next via discrete units he called "factors" (now known as genes), identifying dominant and recessive traits and establishing predictable patterns of inheritance. His key contributions include:

• The Law of Segregation: each inherited trait is controlled by gene pairs that separate during the formation of sex cells.
• The Law of Independent Assortment: genes for different traits are inherited independently.
• The Law of Dominance: dominant traits mask recessive ones in hybrids.

Although Mendel published his findings in 1866, his work was not appreciated during his lifetime and only gained recognition around 1900 when rediscovered by other scientists. Today, Mendel is celebrated as the "father of genetics," and his discoveries laid the foundation for the entire field of genetics and heredity

. In addition to his scientific work, Mendel was an abbot at St. Thomas' Abbey in Brno (now in the Czech Republic) and also contributed as a teacher and meteorologist