Dr. Vida Mingo

Vida Mingo is a senior  lecturer of biology at the College since 2010. Prior to coming to Columbia College Vida was a K-12(middle and high school) teacher in New York City Public Schools. Vida received his doctorate in Biology in 2010 from the University of South Carolina entitled "Genome Signatures Reveal the Importance of Context Dependent Codon Bias in a Range of Bacterial Genomes". Vida’s current research consists of a collaborative partnership with the Genomics Education Partnership (GEP). Genomics Education Partnership is to provide opportunities for undergraduate students to participate in genomics research. GEP is a collaborative between a growing number of primarily undergraduate institutions, and the Biology Department and the McDonnell Genome Institute of Washington University in St. Louis. Participating undergraduates learn to take raw sequence data to high quality finished sequence, and to annotate genes and other features, leading to analysis of a question in genomics and research publication.

Vida is also very active in community service in the Midlands and believes and practices servant-leadership. He is on the Board of Directors for the South Carolina Autism Society. He is also an Alzheimer’s Walk committee member, American Cancer Society- Cancer Action Network Advocate, Sickle Cell Walk, Relay for Life and the American Heart Association Walk and Martin Luther King Jr 5K. 

Student of life, life sciences and lifelong learner. Dr. Mingo loves to travel, sports and arts and culture events.