Born Johann Mendel on July 22, 1822, in Heizendorf, Austria (now part of Czech Republic) to a farming family, the future founder of modern genetics excelled in his studies. His family, however, was unable to pay for extended formal education. During Mendel’s studies at the Philosophical Institute of the University of Olmütz, he was forced to fund himself via tutoring. His family helped in any way possible, even to the point that his sister donated her dowry to help pay tuition.http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/science/natural/biography/mendel.htm  The pressure and stress of the situation eventually took its toll, and twice he fell into depression, returning home to convalesce each time.http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/374739/Gregor-Mendel 

After graduation in 1843, Mendel chose to enter the Augustinian order of St. Thomas’s Abbey at Brünn, Austria (Brno, Czech Republic). Upon inclusion to the order, Johann was renamed Gregor.http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/374739/Gregor-Mendel  Monastic life allowed Mendel to continue his studies and he began teaching classes in mathematics and Greek. Unfortunately, he was unable to pass an exam to gain permanent teaching credentials. His instructor, however, recognized his potential and had him sent to the University of Vienna in 1850.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxLqIaa5Kvs&feature=player_embedded 

While in Vienna, Mendel studied a host of different sciences and was greatly influenced by botanist Franz Unger.http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/science/natural/biography/mendel.htm It was through Unger that Mendel was exposed advanced botany techniques, microscope use and cell theory. This was prior to Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, and the idea that cells were the basic structures of living things was seen as radical and even heretical. 

In 1853, Mendel returned to life in his monastery. He took, and failed, his teaching exam again, suffering a nervous breakdown in the process. He remained a substitute teacher for the rest of his life. In 1867, Mendel was elected abbot, the highest position in the abbey. The years between his return and his promotion mark the period of his greatest experimentation and scientific study.http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/science/natural/biography/mendel.htm 

Using his background in scientific research, Mendel began to experiment with theories on heredity by growing pea plants in the monastery garden. Over the course of eight years and thousands of pea plants, Mendel studied the variations he was able to create through crossbreeding. He learned how traits were passed down from parents and theorized the basis for what would later become modern genetics.http://fieldmuseum.org/about/mendel%E2%80%99s-experiments 

Mendel used pea plants in order to isolate a series of different traits, like color variations and pea texture, through crossbreeding. He grew plants with similar traits side-by-side to see which traits were passed on to the offspring. This experimentation eventually led him to find that some traits could skip a generation (i.e., a plant with smooth peas could have wrinkled-pea offspring), but the next generation, the grandchildren, may revert back to smooth peas. This led to Mendel’s two most influential theories: the Law of Segregation and the Law of Independent Assortment. Mendel's experimentation methods themselves were also extremely influential as it was the first time that the scientific method had been used in biology. Prior to Mendel, biologists gathered data through simple observation.

Mendel’s law describes how each trait of a species has two different alleles, or alternate versions of the same gene. When offspring are born it is random which allele becomes dominant or recessive. The common belief in Mendel’s time was that traits blended; e.g., a tall pea plant mixed with a short one would produce a hybrid of medium height. Mendel proved this wasn’t the case, but instead both were present while only one became visible. One example of this in modern genetics is how blonde parents may have red-headed children and blonde grandchildren.http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/science/natural/biography/mendel.htm 

Also know as Mendel’s Inheritance Law, independent assortment refers to the fact that alleles for each trait in a species combine during fertilization independent of each other. In other words, tall and blonde parents does not mean that every tall child will have blonde hair.http://www.robinsonlibrary.com/science/natural/biography/mendel.htm