Faculty
Faculty members involved with the Bioinformatics and Genomics graduate program are at the vanguard of research in the biological sciences. Hailing from more than a dozen departments across Penn State, these faculty advisers collaborate to conduct research and to train graduate students. The community they have created provides a positive, collaborative environment that helps to position graduate students for career success.
Sinisa Dovat
Professor and Vice Chair for Basic Science Research, Department of Pediatrics; Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and of Pharmacology
Investigate the role of lymphoid master regulator, IKZF1/Ikaros, in the development of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL); other transcriptional factors in leukemia; CK2 activity; chromatin remodeling; super-enhancers.
Kristin Eckert
Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine and of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Mechanisms of human cell mutagenesis and repetitive DNA replication in relation to genome evolution.
Lindsay Fernandez-Rhodes
Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health
The genetic epidemiology of complex diseases in diverse human populations and contexts.
Erika Ganda
Assistant Professor of Food Animal Microbiomes
Developing practical ways to leverage the microbiome to improve food safety and improve food production animals' production efficiency.
David Geiser
Professor of Mycology
Molecular evolutionary genetics of pathogenic and toxigenic fungi.
Ilias Georgakopoulos-Soares
Assistant Professor
The development and implementation of new computational methods in genomics and molecular biology, with the aim of identifying genetic biomarkers for the diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of human diseases, including bacterial and viral infections and of aging-associated diseases including neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.
Santhosh Girirajan
Professor of Genomics; Interim Department Head of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; Professor of Anthropology
Understanding the genetic basis of neurodevelopmental disorders.
Mark Guiltinan
J. Franklin Styer Professor of Horticultural Botany; Professor of Plant Molecular Biology; Director, Endowed Program in the Molecular Biology of Cocoa
Plant functional genomics, metabolomics and biotechnology. Identification of key genes for disease resistance and important traits in the tree crop Theoboma cacao, the Chocolate tree.
Molly Hall
Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professor; Assistant Professor of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences
Building tools to elucidate the complex genetic and environmental underpinnings of human disease. Integrating genetic (genotype, sequence, structural variation) and exposure (derived from surveys and metabolomics methods) big data to predict disease status.
Ross Hardison
Associate Director of the Genome Sciences Institute; T. Ming Chu Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Regulation of gene expression during development.
Heather Hines
Associate Professor of Biology and Entomology
Applies genomic, transcriptomic, phylogenomic, and bioinformatic approaches to study the evolution and genetics of diverse traits in bees and wasps. This includes study of mimetic color diversification, plant gall induction, novel morphologies, speciation, and social evolution.
Vasant Honavar
Huck Chair in Biomedical Data Sciences and AI; Professor and Edward Frymoyer Chair of Information Sciences and Technology
Statistical machine learning algorithms for predictive modeling; modeling and inference of biological networks; characterization and prediction of protein-protein, protein-RNA, and protein-DNA interactions.
Judie Howrylak
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Public Health Sciences, and Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Christian Huber
Assistant Professor of Biology
How evolutionary mechanisms such as mutation, recombination, and natural selection shape genetic diversity and the variability between individuals and species.
Seogchan Kang
Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Genetic and cellular mechanisms underpinning plant-fungal interactions with Arabidopsis thaliana and Fusarium oxysporum as a model system. Molecular genetics and comparative genomics of fungal plant pathogens. Bioinformatics.
Vivek Kapur
Associate Director, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences; Huck Distinguished Chair in Global Health; Professor of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases
The basic mechanisms by which pathogenic microbes successfully infect, colonize, and cause disease in their hosts.
Deb Kelly
Director of the Center for Structural Oncology; Huck Chair in Molecular Biophysics; Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Engineering new molecular paradigms to create a world without cancer.
David Kennedy
Assistant Professor of Biology
Ecology and evolution of infectious diseases, with particular interest in how disease dynamics influence pathogen emergence, virulence evolution, and drug or vaccine resistance.
