Shawn Polson, PhD University of Delaware

Dr. Polson is an Associate Professor in the Departments of Computer and Information Sciences, Plant and Soil Sciences, and Biological Sciences at the University of Delaware. He plays a leadership role in several bioinformatics and data science initiatives, including as the Director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology’s Core and the Bioinformatics, Healthcare informatics, and Data Science Core of Delaware INBRE coordinating advances in Biomedical Data Science education, training, and research support across UD and five partner institutions. Dr. Polson is PI and Co-director for a NIH National Institute of General Medical Sciences funded T32 doctoral training program in Computational Biology, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Data Science. His research interests lie at the intersection of genomics and microbial ecology, examining how microorganisms and their viruses affect and are affected by their environments. His work has driven the development of bioinformatics resources to analyze and visualize metagenomic data, and the application of these approaches to understand the role of microorganisms and viruses in numerous systems including biomedical, agricultural, and marine. In recent years, Dr. Polson has applied his expertise in genomics, bioinformatics, and virology to address issues in biopharmaceutical manufacturing.