Professional Profiles:
Education:
- Sc.B. with Honors in Biology, Brown University, Providence, RI (1990–1994)
- Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA (1997–2002)
- Miller Research Fellow, Plant and Microbial Biology, University of California, Berkeley, CA (2002–2004)
Professional Journey:
- Assistant Professor, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Connecticut (2004–2006)
- Assistant Professor, Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University (2006–2013)
- Associate Professor, Department of Biostatistics, Yale School of Public Health, and Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University (2013–2017)
- Elihu Associate Professor of Biostatistics, and Associate Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Yale University (2017–2018)
- Elihu Professor of Biostatistics, Professor of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, Co-Leader, Program in Genetics, Genomics, and Epigenetics, Yale Cancer Center (2018–Present)
Research Focus:
Jeffrey Townsend’s research focuses on biostatistics, ecology, and evolutionary biology. He has contributed significantly to understanding population genetics, gene expression, cancer evolution, and the development of innovative approaches to population biology.
Honors & Awards:
- Translational Research Prize (2016) from Yale Cancer Center for revealing the early and multiple genetic origins of metastases within primary tumors.
- Jasper Loftus-Hills Young Investigator Award (2005) from the American Society of Naturalists for research on population genetic variation in genome-wide gene expression.
- Council of Graduate Schools Top Four U.S. Life Science Dissertation (2003) for outstanding work on population genetic variation in genome-wide gene expression.
- Walter M. Fitch Young Investigator Award (2001) from the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution for genetic variation in gene expression among isolates of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.
- Elected Member, Connecticut Academy of Science and Engineering (2019) for innovative approaches to population biology and impactful research on antimicrobial resistance, disease evolution, and tumorigenesis.
Top Publications:
- Title: Lineage-specific genes are clustered with HET domain genes and respond to environmental and genetic manipulations regulating reproduction in Neurospora
- Authors: Wang, Z., Wang, Y.-W., Kasuga, T., …, Yarden, O., Townsend, J.P.
- Journal: PLoS Genetics, 2023, 19(11 November), e1011019
- Title: Estimation of Neutral Mutation Rates and Quantification of Somatic Variant Selection Using cancereffectsizeR
- Authors: Mandell, J.D., Cannataro, V.L., Townsend, J.P.
- Journal: Cancer Research, 2023, 83(4), pp. 500–505
- Title: Infection by SARS-CoV-2 with alternate frequencies of mRNA vaccine boosting
- Authors: Townsend, J.P., Hassler, H.B., Dornburg, A.
- Journal: Journal of Medical Virology, 2023, 95(2), e28461
- Title: Origins of lineage-specific elements via gene duplication, relocation, and regional rearrangement in Neurospora crassa
- Authors: Wang, Z., Wang, Y.-W., Kasuga, T., …, Yarden, O., Townsend, J.P.
- Journal: Molecular Ecology, 2023
- Title: The Sordariomycetes: an expanding resource with Big Data for mining in evolutionary genomics and transcriptomics
- Authors: Wang, Z., Kim, W., Wang, Y.-W., …, Townsend, J.P., Yarden, O.
- Journal: Frontiers in Fungal Biology, 2023, 4, 1214537
Author Metrics:
- Documents: 196
- Cited by: 7,721 documents
- Preprints: 19
- Co-Authors: 618
- Topics: 0
- Awarded Grants: 11
Research Timeline:
- 1990–1994: Sc.B. with Honors in Biology, Brown University
- 1997–2002: Ph.D. in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University
- 2002–2004: Miller Research Fellow, University of California, Berkeley
- 2004–2006: Assistant Professor, University of Connecticut
- 2006–2013: Assistant Professor, Yale University
- 2013–2017: Associate Professor, Yale University
- 2017–2018: Elihu Associate Professor of Biostatistics, Yale University
- 2018–Present: Elihu Professor of Biostatistics, Yale University
