August 13, 2024 – The University of Tennessee-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education has named Todd Reynolds as interim program director of its Genome Science and Technology (GST) graduate program.
UT Professor Albrecht von Arnim, who led GST for 14 years, recently stepped down and returned to a full-time faculty role to focus more on his research.
Reynolds is a professor in UT’s Department of Microbiology, the founding director of the Community of Scholars for Biomembranes, and principal investigator of the Integrated Membrane Protein T32 National Institutes for Health training grant. Since coming to UT in 2003, Reynolds has mentored 12 PhD students (including one from GST), one postdoc, a Master of Science Student and many undergraduates.
Reynolds received his doctoral degree from Vanderbilt and bachelor’s from Western Kentucky University. He completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Whitehead Institute.
As GST’s interim program director, Reynolds will serve as director of graduate studies and support student progress. He also will work closely with Bredesen Center and UT-ORII leadership to further develop and grow the GST PhD program, one of three joint UT-ORNL PhD programs.
“I want to thank Albrecht for his tireless work to nurture the GST program and its students for the past 14 years,” said Brynn Voy, UT-Oak Ridge Innovation Institute’s education director and Bredesen Center director. “I appreciate Todd’s willingness to step in as our interim GST director, at a critical time of growth for GST and our other joint (UT-Oak Ridge National Laboratory) PhD programs. Todd has participated in GST over the years and is very familiar with the program. I look forward to working with him.”
“I feel honored to be invited to serve as the interim director of this program that has been run so well by Albrecht, Brynn, and its talented staff,” said Reynolds. “I look forward to contributing to it in this time of transition.”
UT and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have a long history of working together in genomics. GST, in its current form, was created in 1988 by building upon the first UT-ORNL joint PhD program, the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, which was established in the 1960’s.
Today, UT-ORII manages three UT-ORNL PhD programs under the Bredesen Center: GST, Data Science and Engineering, and Energy Science and Engineering. All were created to unite UT and ORNL resources in support of graduate education, and to leverage the impact of ORNL’s reputation and capabilities in recruiting talented UT PhD students. The Bredesen Center plans to launch a search for the next GST director by the end of the academic year.
Learn more about the Bredesen Center’s PhD programs at: https://bredesencenter.utk.edu/.
