Aaron Quinlan, PhD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Human Genetics in the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Utah Health, effective August 19, 2024.
Aaron is a professor in the Departments of Human Genetics and Biomedical Informatics. He also serves as the co-director of the DELPHI Data Science Initiative and in several other capacities. He received his bachelor’s degree in computer science from the College of William and Mary and his Ph.D. from Boston College, where he focused on population genetics, new methods for emerging DNA sequencing technologies, and the discovery of genetic variation. During his National Institutes of Health (NIH) National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellowship at the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Virginia, he developed expertise in structural variation within mammalian genomes and somatic genome mutation.
He started his laboratory at the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Virginia in 2011. He was recruited to the Ï㽶ÊÓƵ of Utah in early 2015 to become the associate director of the Utah Center for Genetic Discovery. Broadly speaking, the Quinlan laboratory seeks to understand the causes and consequences of mutations in germ and somatic cells on development, fertility, and human disease. His laboratory is well known for creating numerous foundational software tools that facilitate discovery in genomics. These tools are used for discovery by thousands of researchers worldwide on a daily basis.
As chair of the Department of Human Genetics, Aaron will lead and manage all departmental affairs, beginning with a collaborative and inclusive strategic planning process that aligns with the university and Health Sciences' goals. His key responsibilities include recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty, leading faculty development and mentorship, ensuring strong departmental leadership, and promoting faculty participation in leadership and performance improvement. Additionally, he will partner with Health Sciences leaders to align educational, research, clinical, and community engagement missions, develop a research strategic plan to grow the department's national prominence, and assist faculty in developing intellectual property with the university's Technology Licensing Office.
Aaron succeeds Lynn Jorde, PhD, who has chaired the department for the past 15 years. 10 of the department’s 20 tenure-line faculty were hired during this time, and all of these faculty members have NIH R-level grant funding. The Department of Human Genetics currently ranks sixth of 26 public genetics departments nationwide in NIH grant funding (Blue Ridge Medical Institute, Feb. 2024).
Lynn has been a faculty member since 1979 and holds the Mark and Kathie Miller Presidential Endowed Chair in Human Genetics. During his time as chair, he served as president of the American Society of Human Genetics and was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has received 13 teaching awards and is the lead author of Medical Genetics, a widely used textbook now in its 6th edition. He founded the Utah Genome Project in 2012 and became co-director of the Center for Genomic Medicine in 2017. These broadly collaborative efforts have brought ample philanthropic and federal research funding to dozens of investigators throughout the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine. With his retirement as chair, Lynn plans to devote his efforts fully to research and teaching.