The 2009-10 campaign marks the second season for Jeff Byrd as an assistant on the women's basketball coaching staff. 

Byrd also serves as the St. Mary's Faculty Athletic Representative and has held that position since 2003.

An avid sports fan, Byrd is a professor of biology and has been at the College since 1990.  He received his B.S. from Cook College at Rutgers University in 1983, his M.S. from The Pennsylvania State University in 1985, and his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland in 1991.

The former chair of the biology department at St. Mary's, his scientific field is microbiology (mainly bacteriology).  Byrd currently holds the Aldom-Plansoen Distinguished Professorship which he earned in 2007.  The professorship is awarded to newly tenured faculty and provides research funds for faculty scholarship to sustain and enrich scholarly contributions.

The Willingboro, N.J. native is a former editor-in-chief for the American Society for Microbiology's Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education and a former commissioner for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

At St. Mary's, Byrd teaches Genetics, Microbiology, Virology, and Contemporary Bioscience (Biology of Infectious Disease) and also serves as a research mentor for the St. Mary's Projects.