Michael Zody, PhD

Lab Groups & Research Areas

Biology, Genomics & Technology Computational Biology Lab

Michael Zody is the Senior Vice President of Informatics at the New York Genome Center (NYGC), where he leads the teams responsible for Computational Biology, Research Computing, Enterprise Computing, Security, and Software Engineering. In this role, he oversees the Center’s high-performance computing infrastructure, public cloud environment, and secure data centers that support the storage and analysis of large-scale genomic data. He also manages all IT services and software development initiatives that power NYGC’s research and sequencing operations. His research projects use genome sequencing to understand the role of both simple and complex genome variation in phenotypic variation and disease risk, including work on autism spectrum disorder, Alzheimer’s disease, and neuropsychiatric disorders.

Before joining NYGC, Dr. Zody was a leader in the Human Genome Project at the Whitehead Institute Center for Genome Research, where his team assembled, quality-checked, and released one-quarter of the first draft human genome sequence. He also co-led the mouse genome sequencing project and was an analysis group leader for both the mouse and chimpanzee genome analysis consortia. In addition, he has conducted research on human infectious viruses, including Dengue, West Nile, Hepatitis C, and HIV.

Dr. Zody holds a doctorate in medical science from Uppsala University and a master’s in metallurgy and bachelor’s in materials science and engineering from MIT. In addition to his research work, Dr. Zody has developed and taught many classes on sequencing technology and computational genomic analyses.