Melissa Ilardo, PhD
Assistant Professor, Lab PI
Dr. Melissa Ilardo lives in Salt Lake City with her husband and their two dogs. Following her PhD in evolutionary genomics at the University of Copenhagen, Melissa completed two postdocs simultaneously: at the University of Utah and UC Berkeley. Melissa then spent 3 years working in industry with large-scale health genomics cohorts at genomics-based drug discovery startups before returning to academia at the University of Utah as an Assistant Professor in Biomedical Informatics.
Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of health phenotypes by exploring human evolution and adaptation in populations that have previously been overlooked or excluded from biological research. Thus far, she has partnered with two populations who engage in the practice of breath-hold diving. Melissa uses computational genomics paired with health data to translate discoveries made in these unique populations into medically relevant insights. When not working, Melissa enjoys trail running, mountain biking, and backcountry skiing in the beautiful Wasatch mountains.
Her research takes an interdisciplinary approach to the understanding of health phenotypes by exploring human evolution and adaptation in populations that have previously been overlooked or excluded from biological research. Thus far, she has partnered with two populations who engage in the practice of breath-hold diving. Melissa uses computational genomics paired with health data to translate discoveries made in these unique populations into medically relevant insights. When not working, Melissa enjoys trail running, mountain biking, and backcountry skiing in the beautiful Wasatch mountains.
