Rachel Burnside is an ABMGG Board Certified Clinical Cytogeneticist and brings a wide breadth of professional experience to her lab. She started her career as a cytogenetics technologist in Houston, TX in a private lab that was owned by the late genetics pioneer, Dr. Tom Caskey. She later earned her doctorate degree from the University of Kentucky in Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics. She completed a fellowship in Clinical Cytogenetics as the University of Alabama at Birmingham and worked as a Cytogenetics Director at LabCorp in Research Triangle Park, NC. After later earning an MBA from Duke University with a certification in Health Sector Management, Dr. Burnside moved to industry, managing the global marketing and product management teams for the hematology business unit of Beckman Coulter Diagnostics.

Dr. Burnside returned to the lab in May 2023, joining the University of Florida Cytogenetics lab as Section Director. She is a co-course director for the genetics course for first-year medical students and a strong advocate for medical genetics in the Gainesville area, encouraging undergraduate, graduate and medical students to consider careers in genetics.

Dr. Burnside is currently completing alternate path molecular training at the Cleveland Clinic and will sit for the LGG exam in 2025.