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Fernando Pardo Manuel de Villena, PhD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Genetics. He will officially begin in his new role on March 1, subject to confirmation by the necessary UNC system entities. Pardo Manuel de Villena has served as Interim Chair since July of 2016.


Fernando Pardo Manuel de Villena, PhD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Genetics. He will officially begin in his new role on March 1, subject to confirmation by the necessary UNC system entities. Pardo Manuel de Villena has served as Interim Chair since July of 2016.

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Fernando Pardo Manuel de Villena, PhD

Fernando Pardo Manuel de Villena, PhD, has been appointed Chair of the Department of Genetics. He will officially begin in his new role on March 1, subject to confirmation by the necessary UNC system entities. Pardo Manuel de Villena has served as Interim Chair since July of 2016.

As Chair, Pardo Manuel de Villena will continue his work of overseeing the department’s research enterprise – including multiple dedicated research centers – while also coordinating the educational programs aimed at training the next generation of scientists.

Pardo Manuel de Villena first joined the Genetics faculty in 2001. Since that time he has held several leadership roles. Since 2009 he has lead the program in systems genetics based on the Collaborative Cross at UNC. Prior to being named Interim Chair in 2016, he had served four years as Associate Chair for Research.

In a letter to the department announcing the appointment, Drs. Bill Roper and Wesley Burks called Pardo Manuel de Villena ‘a gifted scientist.’ They also expressed their confidence that the department’s outstanding track record for research and education would continue under his leadership.

An international leader in the field of genetics, Pardo Manuel de Villena has served as director of the Genetics Society of America and in the Secretariat of the International Mammalian Genome Society. He was elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011. He was named Oliver Smithies Investigator in 2015.

Pardo Manuel de Villena completed his doctoral work at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, and his postdoctoral work at the Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology at Temple University in Philadelphia.