Jacquelyn S. (Jacque) Fetrow (born 1960) is a computational biologist, college administrator, and the 15th president of Albright College. Previously, she served as Provost, Vice President of Academic Affairs, and Professor of Chemistry at the University of Richmond, in Richmond, Virginia. Prior to that appointment, she served as Dean of the College at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. She also co-founded a company, GeneFormatics, for which she served as Director and Chief Scientific Officer for four years.
Early life and education
Fetrow is a native of Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Her mother, Mildred F. Fetrow, was a public school teacher in the West Shore School District, teaching kindergarten, first grade and second grade for many years. Her father, David E. Fetrow, was a carpenter. He also worked as a truck salesman, real estate salesman, and office manager.
Fetrow attended Camp Hill public schools through twelfth grade, Albright College for her bachelor's degree (Biochemistry), and Penn State College of Medicine for a Ph.D. (Biological Chemistry), which she earned in 1986 working with George D. Rose. She did post-doctoral stints at the University of Rochester School of Medicine under the mentorship of Fred Sherman, and at the Whitehead Institute at Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the tutelage of Peter S. Kim.
Career
Fetrow worked at the University at Albany, SUNY, from 1990 to 1998, serving as assistant and then associate professor of biological sciences. She then accepted a position at The Scripps Research Institute. Technology that she helped develop at Scripps served as the foundation for GeneFormatics, Inc., the company that Fetrow co-founded and at which she served as Chief Scientific Officer and Director. In August 2003 she was appointed Reynolds Professor of Computational Biology at Wake Forest University, and in January 2009 she was appointed as Dean of Wake Forest College. She moved to the University of Richmond to serve as Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs at the University of Richmond in 2014. In 2017 she was appointed president of her alma mater, Albright College.
Research
Fetrow was the first to describe the non-regular protein structure, omega loop, a structure she identified and studied for her doctoral dissertation (work published under the name Jacquelyn F. Leszczynski). Her early research work involved the experimental analysis of these structures in the protein cytochrome c.
Later, Fetrow's work turned to the classification of functional sites in protein structures, resulting in Fuzzy Functional Forms and active site profiling. This work formed the foundation for the company she co-founded, GeneFormatics. Subsequent development of the active site profiling technology was used to create the Peroxiredoxin Classification Index. This technology has been used to cluster other superfamilies, including the enolases, peroxiredoxins, cytochrome P450s, and arsenate reductases, into functionally relevant clusters.
Awards and honors
Alumni Fellow, Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, 2015
Distinguished Alumnus/a Award, Albright College, October 2010
Honorary member, Phi Beta Kappa, Wake Forest University, April 2009
Teaching Innovation Award (for Bioinformatics course, developed with David John), Center for Teaching and Learning, Wake Forest University, February 2006 Young Alumnus/a Achievement Award, Albright College, May 1997 Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, University at Albany, Spring, 1995 (A SUNY-wide award) President's Award for Excellence in Teaching, University at Albany, Spring, 1995 Member, Jacob Albright Society of Scholars (for high academic achievement), Albright College, May 1982 NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship (NIH). January, 1987–January, 1990.