Virginia Hughes is an Assistant Professor and Director of the MLS Program at Dixie State University. She received her Bachelor of Science at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Department of Medical and Research Technology in 1993. She received a Masters of Science in Biomedical Research in 1998 from the University of Maryland. In 2002 she graduated from the Specialist in Blood Banking program from the NIH, earning SBB (ASCP) credentials in 2002. She received a PhD in Public Policy and Public Administration from Auburn University in 2015. Her dissertation identified national factors that affect human embryonic stem cell policy in fifty countries using logistic regression. For her Masters Thesis she isolated hematopoietic stem cells from umbilical cord blood and treated the stem cells with bone morphogenetic protein 2 at various concentrations in tissue culture. She has written numerous book chapters and journal articles in immunohematology and hematology and has received national research awards in biotechnology.