Dr. Korin Jones
IGC FELLOW Alumni | Global Change Center
VT Alumni 2023 • Biological Sciences
Advisor: Dr. Lisa Belden
korinrex@vt.edu
Korin Jones successfully defended his PhD dissertation in July 2023. Post-graduation, Korin a Postdoc position as Stengl-Wyer Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin. He will be working to understand how the colonization order of gut bacteria can affect the composition and spatial organization of bacteria within the honeybee gut microbiome using a combination of fluorescent microscopy and metagenomics.
Korin graduated from Emory and Henry in 2011 with a BA in biology and a minor in chemistry. During his time at Emory and Henry, he co-founded the Men of Color Alliance group, which sought to facilitate large forum discussions that included a variety of cultural groups. Korin also conducted research on moray eel caudal morphology as well as a short behavioral study on poison dart frogs in Costa Rica. After graduation, Korin traveled to China for a position as an English teacher at a college in the city of Zhengzhou, Henan. He became so enamored with both teaching and Chinese culture that he found himself seeking a position as an elementary/middle school biology/chemistry teacher in a Wuxi, Jiangsu the following year. Following his desire to teach more intricate concepts, he found a position as a high school biology/chemistry teacher in Shanghai where he remained for 3 year
Throughout his travels, it has become obvious to Korin that different cultures & stakeholders tend to have different views on the environment and the role that humans play in affecting the world around them. In 2016, Korin returned to the United States and found a job as a medical laboratory technician in Salt Lake City, Utah. While he enjoyed working on the lab bench, he found that he longed to teach as well as seek answers to more complicated research questions. During time off, he volunteered at the Natural History Museum of Utah as both preparator in the fossil lab and as a facilitator in the STEM lab for school groups.
While at Virginia Tech Korin's research interests where in microbial ecology, particularly looking at the way that microbes can impact the emerging amphibian threat, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Due to the myriad of conditions that affect the pathogenicity of this disease such as climate change, human facilitated movement, and host/pathogen genetic variation; Korin believes that this is a problem that would be best solved through analyzing a variety of potential solutions.
The ICG IGEP provides PhD students with a unique intellectual focus and training, gaining depth in their specific scientific area of expertise, while simultaneously gaining breadth in the multifaceted realm of global change and the science-policy interface.
When students complete our program, they remain part of our broad community by becoming part of our Global Alumni Network. Our alumni are invited to participate in our graduate seminar courses, provide keynote remarks at our annual graduate research symposium, return to Virginia Tech for GCC gatherings, network with current students regarding career opportunities, and stay connected to each other.
