Professor Woods received his undergraduate training at Queen’s University, Canada, in Engineering Chemistry, followed by a PhD in synthetic and theoretical carbohydrate chemistry also at Queen’s. His post-doctoral training included a period of three years in the Glycobiology Institute at the University of Oxford, followed by a year at the National Research Council in Canada.  In 1995 Professor Woods took a faculty position at the Complex Carbohydrate Research Center in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Georgia, where he is currently a Full Professor.  He is also the President of Lectenz Bio, LLC, a biotech company located in Athens Georgia; and received the UGA Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2014.  

Research in the Woods group focuses on the role of complex carbohydrates in infection and immunology.  His lab uses a range of techniques to characterize the 3D structures of carbohydrate-protein complexes, including computational simulations and experimental biophysics and molecular biology.