Irene Newsham

Irene Newsham, PhD MB(ASCP)cm FACSc received her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Vermont and her PhD in Applied Biological Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA. Prior to joining Norwich University in 2022, Dr. Newsham was Associate Professor and Associate Program Director for the Molecular Genetic Technology program in the School of Health Professions at UT MD Anderson Cancer Center.

At the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, she was responsible for curriculum development and teaching of molecular diagnostics and forensics, while mentoring undergraduates training to enter graduate school, medical school or the clinical molecular diagnostics profession.

Following post-doctoral training at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research in Montreal, Canada, Dr. Newsham spent over 20 years as an NIH-Funded faculty member at several Universities including University of California-San Diego, Virginia Commonwealth University and UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, where her research on cancer genetics and application/technologies for oncogenomic analysis has resulted in over 55 publications.

As students increasingly expressed an interest in applying their molecular knowledge to the field of forensics, Dr. Newsham earned her Certificate in Genealogy Research in 2019 from Boston University’s Center for Professional Education. With this added knowledge, she expanded the molecular forensics course to include traditional Genealogy practices as well as the use of Genetic Genealogy to solve crimes. Dr. Newsham hopes to bring both molecular and genealogy experiences into the CHEM100 forensics course.