Justin Vaughn, Ph.D.
Scientist in Residence, HudsonAlpha Insitute of Biotechnology
Adjunct Faculty - PBGG, University of Georgia, Athens
CAGT Building, 111 Riverbend Rd, Athens, GA 30602
juvaughn@hudsonalpha.org
(706) 546-3185
genemachine.net
Ph.D., Genetics and Bioinformatics, 2011, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
B.S., Biology, 2003, Samford University, Birmingham, Alabama, USA
Dr. Justin Vaughn studied general biology as an undergraduate at Samford University. He received his doctoral degree from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, working with Albecht von Arnim to develop computational pipelines for comparative transcriptomics in plants. As a postdoctoral researcher in Jeff Bennetzen’s lab at the University of Georgia, Athens, Dr. Vaughn characterized structural variation in rice populations and used this data to develop new models of tandem duplication formation. He also assisted on numerous genome sequencing projects ranging from orphan grains to culinary herbs. He moved to Zenglu Li’s group at the University of Georgia as a postdoctoral researcher and then research scientist. There, he helped in efforts to characterize the global soybean germplasm as well as dissect the genetic architecture of key agronomic traits such as seed composition. He has consulted on the design and implementation of numerous computational and interactive breeding tools, which aim to enhance the usefulness of genomic and phenotypic information in cultivar development. He furthered those aims as computational biologist and rotating research leader with the Genomics and Bioinformatics Research Unit at USDA-ARS for eight years. He is currently a Scientist in Residence at HudsonAlpha Insitute of Biotechnology and Adjunct Faculty at the University of Georgia, Athens.