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Research Instructor
Center for Human Genetics Research
Vanderbilt University
511 Light Hall
Nashville, TN 37232
615.343.5851
t.thornton-wells@vanderbilt.edu
EDUCATION
1991-1995 Vanderbilt University, B.A. (Philosophy)
2000-2005 Vanderbilt University, M.S. (Biomedical Informatics)
Thesis Title: Comparison of Three Clustering Methods for Dissecting
Trait Heterogeneity in Simulated Genotypic Data
2000-2006 Vanderbilt University, Ph.D. (Neuroscience)
Dissertation Title: Confronting Complexity: A Comprehensive Statistical
and Computational Strategy for Identifying the
Missing Link between Genotype and Phenotype
2007 Functional MRI Visiting Fellowship, Athinoula A. Martinos Center
for Biomedical Imaging, Mass General Hospital, Harvard-MIT, Boston, MA
RESEARCH AND PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
1996-2000 Clinical Quality Improvement
Database Development & Administration
Renal Care Group, Inc.
Nashville, TN
2000-2006 Graduate Research Assistant
(Statistical Genetics and Bioinformatics)
with Jonathan L. Haines, Ph.D. and Jason H. Moore, Ph.D.
Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
Center for Human Genetics Research
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2006-2009 Postdoctoral Research Fellow
(Neuroimaging / Neurodevelopmental Disorders)
with Elisabeth Dykens, Ph.D. and John Gore, Ph.D.
Biobehavioral Intervention Training Program
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2009-Present Research Instructor
(Statistical Genetics / Neuroimaging)
Center for Human Genetics Research
Division of Human Genetics
Department of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
HONORS AND AWARDS
2001-2002 NIMH Neuroscience Training Grant Fellowship (T32 MH64913)
2001 Vanderbilt University Graduate School Travel Grant
2002-2006 NLM Informatics Training Grant Fellowship (LMO7450-01)
2002 Vanderbilt University Graduate School Travel Grant
2003 Roger Williams Predoctoral Award Nominee,
International Genetic Epidemiology Society
2006-Present NIMH Biobehavioral Intervention Training Grant
Postdoctoral Fellowship (T32 MH075883)
2008 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Travel Grant
2009 Featured Postdoc Presentation, Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Science Day
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Statistical/Computational Genetics
Neuroimaging
Genetic & Trait Heterogeneity
Epistasis & Gene-Environment Interactions
Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Williams Syndrome
Alzheimer Disease
Anxiety & Mood Disorders
MEMBERSHIPS IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES
American Society for Human Genetics (ASHG)
American Statistical Association (ASA)
International Genetic Epidemiology Society (IGES)
Society for Neuroscience (SFN)
RESEARCH FUNDING
2007-2008 Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Hobbs Discovery Grant (Co-Investigator)
“Williams Syndrome Paradox: Genetic and Neural Bases of Hypersociability and Nonsocial Fears”. $24,262.
2008 Vanderbilt Institute for Imaging Science (Co-Investigator)
“Williams Syndrome Paradox: Genetic and Neural Bases of Hypersociability and Nonsocial Fears”. $3375.
2008 Vanderbilt Inst. for Clinical and Translational Research (Co-Investigator)
Vanderbilt CTSA grant 1 UL1 RR024975 from NCRR/NIH
“Williams Syndrome Paradox: Genetic and Neural Bases of Hypersociability and Nonsocial Fears”. $8,623.
PendingNational Institute of Mental Health Mentored Clinical Scientist Research Career Development Award (K08) (Consultant)
K08 MH085810-01 “A Computational Analysis of Psychiatric Genetics Data: Pathways and Architecture”
2009-2014 National Institute of Mental Health Mentored Clinical Scientist Research
Career Development Award (K08) (Consultant)
K08 MH085810-01 “A Computational Analysis of Psychiatric Genetics Data: Pathways and Architecture”
EDITORIAL EXPERIENCE
2003 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Bioinformatics
2003-2005 Student Editorial Board, Journal of the American Medical Informatics Assoc
2004-2005 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Pacific Symposium on Biocomputing
2005-2007 Assistant Editor, Vanderbilt University Editors' Club
2007-Present Editor-in-Chief, Vanderbilt University Editors' Club
2008 Ad-hoc Reviewer, BMC Genetics
2008 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Neurobiology of Aging
2008-2009 Ad-hoc Reviewer, BioData Mining
2008 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Neuropsychiatric Genetics
2008 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Human Genetics
2008 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Human Heredity
2009 Ad-hoc Reviewer, Journal of Artificial Evolution and Applications
ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE
2000-2001 2nd Vice-President, Graduate Student Council
2001-2002 President, Graduate Student Council
2002-2003 Outreach Coordinator, Neuroscience Student Organization
2007-2008 Editor-in-Chief, Vanderbilt University Editors' Club
TEACHING EXPERIENCE
2002 Teaching Assistant, Biostatistics (IGP 300B)
Interdisciplinary Graduate Program
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2002 Lecturer, Biostatistics (IGP 300B), “Descriptive Statistics and Data Visualization”
Interdisciplinary Graduate Program
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2002 Lecturer, Biostatistics (IGP 300B), “Correlation and Regression”
Interdisciplinary Graduate Program
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2005-2006 Lecturer, Research Methodology, “Biostatistics Review”
Department of Cancer Biology
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2007-Pres Lecturer, "Looking within: An Introduction to Biomedical Imaging"
Scientific Outreach Program, Vanderbilt University Institute of Imaging Science
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2008 Guest Lecturer, "Williams Syndrome," Issues in Developmental Disabilities
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
INVITED PRESENTATIONS
1998 “Quality of Life Indicators”
National Kidney Foundation Spring Clinical Nephrology Meeting
Nashville, TN
1998 “Patient Satisfaction and Quality of Life Surveys”
Renal Care Group First Annual Meeting
New Orleans, LA
1999 “Renal Care Group Biomedical Survey”
Renal Care Group Second Annual Meeting
Chicago, IL
2003 “Clustering Methodologies for Discovery of Trait Heterogeneity
Using Multilocus Genotypes”
National Library of Medicine Informatics Trainee Annual Meeting
Bethesda, MD
2003 “Clustering Methodologies for Discovery of Trait Heterogeneity
Using Multilocus Genotypes”
Neuroscience Research Forum
Nashville, TN
2003 “Power Study of a Novel Approach to Identifying a Minimum Candidate Gene Region
in Complex Diseases”
International Genetic Epidemiology Society 12th Annual Meeting
Redondo Beach, CA
2004 “Dissecting Trait Heterogeneity: A Comparison of Clustering Methodologies
for Discovery of Trait Heterogeneity Using Multilocus Genotypes”
Neuroscience Research Forum
Nashville, TN
2007 "Williams Syndrome: An fMRI Study on Affinity for Music"
Neurodevelopmental Disorders Grand Rounds
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center for Research on Human Development
Nashville, TN
2007 "Genetics and Functional Neuroimaging of Children with Prader-Willi Syndrome
At-Risk for Psychosis"
VUIIS Annual Retreat
Birmingham, AL
2007 "Music magnetism: An fMRI study of music processing in Williams Syndrome
reveals recruitment of non-auditory sensory cortex"
Annual Meeting of the Society for Neuroscience
San Diego, CA
2008 "fMRI responses to emotionally charged images and faces in Williams syndrome"
Gatlinburg Conference on Research & Theory in Intellectual &
Developmental Disabilities
San Diego, CA
2008 "Neuroimaging in Williams Syndrome,” Speaker Series on Developmental Psychology,
Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2009 "Music magnetism: An fMRI study of music processing in Williams Syndrome,"
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center Science Day, Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2009 "Functional Neuroimaging in Williams Syndrome,"
The School for Science and Math at Vanderbilt, Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN
2009 "Cross-Modal Sensory Processing in Williams Syndrome: Hints at a Spectrum
for Typical Development?”
Psychiatric Neuroimaging Program Research Meeting, Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN.
PUBLICATIONS
Book Chapters:
1. Thornton TA, Hakim RM. Rehabilitation of Dialysis Patients: Reexamining the Barriers and the Benefits, in Malluche H, Sawaya P, Hakim RM, Sayegh MH (eds): Updated Textbook of Clinical Nephrology, Dialysis and Transplantation. Desenhofen, Germany, Dustri-Verlag, 1999.
2. Moore JH, Thornton TA, Ritchie MD. Basic statistics. In: Dracopoli NC, Haines JL, Korf BR, Moir DT, Morton CC, Seidman CE, Seidman JG, Smith DR (eds): Current Protocols in Human Genetics, New York: Wiley-Liss, Inc., 2003.
3. Thornton TA. The DNA donation project. In Lorenzi NM, Ash JS, Einbinder J, McPhee W, Einbinder L (eds): Implementing Health Informatics Systems: Case Studies. New York: Springer Science+Business Media, Inc., 2005.
4. Hodapp RM, Thornton-Wells TA, Dykens EM. Intellectual Disabilities. In Zeneah C et al. (Ed): Handbook of Infant Mental Health, New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., In Press.
Research Papers:
1. Thornton TA, Hakim RM. Meaningful Rehabilitation of the End-Stage Renal Disease Patient. Seminars in Nephrology. 17: 246-252, 1997.
2. Thornton TA, Hakim RM. The Relationship Between Quality of Care and Financial Performance in Dialysis: “Doing Well by Doing Good”. Advances in Renal Replacement Therapy. 4: 350-358, 1997.
3. Hagan MC, Thornton TA, Zald DH, Pardo JV. Ventral Frontal Activation During Somatosensory Processing. Journal of Neurophysiology 88: 1400-1406, 2002.
4. Moore JH, Hahn LW, Ritchie MD, Thornton TA, White BC. Application of Genetic Algorithms to the Discovery of Complex Models for Simulation Studies in Human Genetics. In Langdon WB, Cantu-Paz E, Mathias K, Roy R, Davis D, Poli R, Balakrishnan K, Honavar V, Rudolph G, Wegener J, Bull L, Potter MA, Schultz AC, Miller JF, Burke E, Jonoska N (eds): Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. New York, Morgan Kaufmann, 1150-1155, 2002.
5. Thornton TA, Haines JL. PowerTrim: An Automated Decision Support Algorithm for Preprocessing Family-Based Genetic Data. American Journal of Human Genetics 72: 1280-1281, 2003.
6. Moore JH, Hahn LW, Ritchie MD, Thornton TA, White BC. Routine discovery of high-order epistasis models for computational studies in human genetics. Applied Soft Computing 4: 79-86, 2004.
7. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Haines JL. Genetics, statistics and human disease: analytical retooling for complexity. Trends in Genetics 20: 640-647, 2004.
8. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Haines JL. Dissecting trait heterogeneity: A comparison of clustering methodologies applied to genotypic data. BMC Bioinformatics 7: 204, 2006.
9. Bush WS, Thornton-Wells TA, and Ritchie MD. Association Rule Discovery has the ability to Model Complex Genetic Effects. Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Data Mining: 624-629, 2007.
10. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Martin ER, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL. Confronting Complexity in Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease: Application of Two-Stage Analysis Approach Addressing Heterogeneity and Epistasis. Genetic Epidemiology 32: 187-203, 2008.
11. Thornton-Wells TA, Kim CY, Cannistraci CJ, Eapen M, Anderson A, Gore JC, Blake RR, Dykens EM. Auditory Attraction: Activation of visual cortex to music and sound in Williams syndrome. Am J Intellect Dev Disabil, 2009. (Accepted)
12. Thornton-Wells TA, Cannistraci CJ, Eapen M, Anderson A, Gore JC, Dykens EM. Anxiety
and empathy in Williams Syndrome: An fMRI study of brain responses to emotionally
charged images and faces. (In Preparation)
12. Han Z, Thornton-Wells TA, Dykens EM, Dawant BM, Gore JC. Atlas-based shape analysis
in Williams Syndrome. (In preparation)
Book Review:
Thornton TA, Johnson KB. Book review: PERL programming for biologists. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 11: 173, 2004.
ABSTRACTS
1. Thornton TA, Nicodimus K, Saunders AM, Mennold MM, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL, Moore JH. A genetic algorithm-optimized clustering methodology for the identification of multilocus genotypes that define disease subtypes. Graduate Student Research Day, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 2002.
2. Thornton TA, Haines JL. PowerTrim: An automated decision support algorithm for preprocessing family-based genetic data. American Journal of Human Genetics 71 Suppl: 570, 2002.
3. Thornton TA, Kenealy SJ, Haines JL. Power Study of a Novel Approach to Identifying a Minimum Candidate Gene Region in Complex Diseases. American Society of Human Genetics Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, CA, November 4-8, 2003.
4. Thornton TA, Kenealy SJ, Haines JL. Power Study of a Novel Approach to Identifying a Minimum Candidate Gene Region in Complex Diseases. International Genetic Epidemiology Society 12th Annual Meeting, Redondo Beach, CA, November 2-4, 2003.
5. Thornton TA, Moore JH, Haines JL. Clustering Methodologies for Discovery of Trait Heterogeneity Using Multilocus Genotypes. Vanderbilt-Meharry Genetics Symposium, Nashville, TN, September 4, 2003.
6. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Haines JL. Clustering Methodologies for Discovery of Trait Heterogeneity Using Multilocus Genotypes. Vanderbilt-Meharry Genetics Symposium, Nashville, TN, September 23, 2004.
7. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Haines JL. Dissecting Trait Heterogeneity: A Comparison of Clustering Methodologies Using Multilocus Genotypes. Middle Tennessee Chapter of the Society for Neuroscience, Nashville, TN, August 26, 2005.
8. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Haines JL. Dissecting Trait Heterogeneity: A Comparison of Clustering Methodologies Using Multilocus Genotypes. Vanderbilt-Meharry Genetics Symposium, Nashville, TN, September 21, 2005.
9. Martin ER, Thornton-Wells TA, Edward TL, Hahn LW, Bronson P, Gilbert JR, Haines JL, Pericak-Vance MA. Joint analysis of candidate genes in AD through data reduction. International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders, Madrid, Spain, June 15-20, 2006.
10. Thornton-Wells TA, Kim CY, Cannistraci CJ, Eapen M, Anderson A, Gore JC, Blake RR, Dykens EM. Music magnetism: An fMRI study on music processing in Williams Syndrome reveals recruitment of non-auditory sensory cortical region. Society for Neuroscience, San Diego, CA, November 3-7, 2007.
11. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Martin ER, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL. Confronting Complexity in Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease: Application of Two-Stage Analysis Approach Addressing Heterogeneity and Epistasis. International Genetic Epidemiology Society, York, England, September 7-10, 2007.
12. Thornton-Wells TA, Moore JH, Martin ER, Pericak-Vance MA, Haines JL. Confronting Complexity in Late-Onset Alzheimer Disease: Application of Two-Stage Analysis Approach Addressing Heterogeneity and Epistasis. American Society for Human Genetics, San Diego, October 23-27, 2007.
13. Thornton-Wells TA, Cannistraci CJ, Eapen E, Gore JC, Blake RR, Dykens EM. Music magnetism: An fMRI study of music processing in Williams Syndrome reveals recruitment of non-auditory sensory cortex. Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, November 3-7, 2007.
14. Thornton-Wells TA, Cannistraci CJ, Eapen E, Gore JC, Dykens EM. fMRI responses to emotionally charged images and faces in Williams syndrome. Gatlinburg Conference on On Research & Theory in Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities, San Diego, CA, March 26-28, 2008.
15. Anderson AW, TumukluMN, Arlinghaus LR, Thornton-Wells TA, Hong X, Meltzer HY. Effects of genetic polymorphisms on white matter structure in schizophrenia measured with diffusion tensor imaging. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, May 3-9, 2008.
16. Thornton-Wells TA, Cannistraci CJ, Eapen E, Gore JC, Dykens EM. fMRI responses to emotionally charged images and faces in Williams syndrome. Society for Neuroscience, Washington, DC, November 15-19, 2008.
17. Han Z, Thornton-Wells TA, Dykens EM, Srivastava A, Ding Z, Gore JC, Dawant B. Comparison of Group Average and Individual Differences in Brain Morphometry in Williams Syndrome. International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine, Honolulu, Hawaii, April 18-24, 2009.
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