Dr. Pinkert joined the University of Alabama (UA) in 2013 where he serves as Vice President for Research and Economic Development, and where he is a tenured Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. For over 30 years, his research revolved around animal modeling and transgenesis. He has published extensively on transgenic modeling, reproductive biology, and embryology of laboratory and domestic animals. His laboratory developed a number of enabling technologies for the genetic engineering of both nuclear and mitochondrial genomes, as well as mitochondrial modeling strategies to address human developmental and metabolic diseases.He served as an editor of Transgenic Research on the editorial boards of five others. His research was funded by NIH, USDA, NSF, private foundations and industry. He was a Sigma Xi national lecturer from 1993-1995 and a recipient of the 1997 Doerenkamp-Zbinden Foundation Research Prize (awarded for biomedical research that significantly impacts on the welfare and well-being of animals used in research). He was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2011.