Kenny Beckman, PhD

Administrative support contact for Dr. Beckman: Karina Sartorio

Kenny Beckman, Ph.D. is the Director of the University of Minnesota Genomics Center, where he oversees a staff of 40 providing services to faculty across the UMN system and at external institutions. After an undergraduate degree in biology (majoring in Ecology) at Cornell, Beckman earned a Ph.D. in Physiological Plant Pathology from the University of Cambridge (U.K.), and then pursued postdoctoral research at U.C. Berkeley in the lab of Bruce Ames, where he focused on the role of oxidative stress and DNA damage in aging. Beckman's interest in method development resulted in a switch into the field of genomics in the late 1990s, and he has remained focused on genomics since then. He co-founded two genomics-based biotech companies (Gorilla Genomic, Inc. and CoreBiome, Inc., now known as Diversigen), and since 2004, has directed genomics core facilities, first at Children's Hospital of Oakland and since 2009, at the UMN. He continues to carry out methodological research focused on genomics methods.