Faculty and Staff

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Bioinformatics Staff

The UMMC Molecular and Genomics Core Facility (MGCF) is under the direction of Michael R. Garrett, PhD, MBA (Director) and D. Ashley Robinson, PhD (Associate Director) and employs 4.5 FTE experienced staff in performing a variety of genomic methodologies. Consultation and genomic services are offered to all UMMC investigators as well as other institutions of higher learning across the state of Mississippi. 

Lavanya Challagundla

Lavanya Challagundla, PhD
Instructor, Cell and Molecular Biology

Dr. Challagundla is involved in performing standard and custom bioinformatics analysis of large genomic datasets generated in the MGCF. She is experienced in multiple programming languages (R, Bash, Perl and Python), along with multiple analysis pipelines, including metagenomics, RNA sequencing, and data visualization of complex biological data.

Shanzida SiddiqueShanzida Siddique, MS
Bioinformatician I

Shanzida is responsible for performing bioinformatics analysis (Bulk-RNA sequencing, Single Cell RNA sequencing, Expression quantitative treat loci (eQTL) analysis,etc) of large genomic datasets generated in the MGCF. She is experienced in various programming languages including Python, R, Bash in addition to various data visualization tools such as Cytoscape and Tableau.

Taylor FlemingTaylor Fleming, Comptia A+, Network+, Security+, CySA+, CASP+
UNIX System Administrator

Taylor is responsible for administering our on-site High-Performance Computing Cluster (HPCC) along with working hand in hand with our Bioinformatics team as they process through multiple projects. He is also experienced in Unix and Windows System Administration, as well as shell scripting.