Editor Name: David A McClellan

Designation: Professor and Head

University: University of Arkansas-Fort Smith

Country: USA

Biography: Dr. McClellan earned a BS (1991) and MS (1994) in zoology at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He earned his PhD (1999) at the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Sciences. His research has focused on molecular evolution, especially the development of novel methods of analysis to identify and characterize the evolution of protein structure and function in natural populations in eukaryotes, prokaryotes, and viruses. He won a postdoctoral fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science for further training at the Institute of Statistical Mathematics (Tokyo, Japan)and the Tokyo Institute of Technology School of Bioscience and Biotechnology, andto develop new analytical methods for studying molecular evolution and protein adaptation. He returned to Brigham Young University as a professor in 2001, where he helped develop an undergraduate major in bioinformatics (one of the first of its kind in the United States), taught within its curriculum, and served as its coordinator 2005-6. In 2007, Dr. McClellan left the university setting to focus more on his research, and took a position as a Senior Research Scientist at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences to study protein adaptation in microbes and invertebrates in reaction to the dynamics of marine and estuarine habitats. In 2013, he accepted a position as Professor and Head of the Department of Biological Science at University of Arkansas, Fort Smith. He has published broadly in the fields of molecular evolution, bioinformatics, and biomedical research. He currently serves on the Steering Committee for the Biotechnology and BioinformaticsSymposium, and is on the Board of Trustees for both Mercy Orthopedic Hospital and Mercy Hospital Fort Smith.He has been a PI or Co-PI on over $13 million in research grants from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) Foundation. He has published >30 peer-reviewed articles, given 24 invited research presentations, and 59 presentations at professional meetings.