Georgia McGaughey, PhD

Georgia McGaughey has more than 30 years expertise in computational sciences, research strategy and digital transformation for drug discovery. She currently advises companies on advancing their drug discovery programs through Trilligant, a company she founded in 2024. 

She worked at Vertex Pharmaceuticals for nearly 12 years, mostly recently serving as Vice President of the Global Data and Computational Science group. McGaughey was also a member of the Research Leadership Team responsible for the scientific strategy and direction for the entire Vertex drug discovery portfolio. Prior to her time at Vertex, she spent 13 years at Merck where she held a variety of positions in therapeutic areas such as infectious diseases and neurosciences.

Throughout her career, McGaughey has contributed to the invention and advancement of several drug candidates and generated more than 100 publications and presentations. She has served on the editorial advisory board for numerous journals (including the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and F1000) and many conferences (such as the Computer Aided Drug Design Gordon Research Conference), and has participated in multiple study sections for the National Institutes of Health. 

McGaughey earned her BS in chemistry from Kennesaw State College and her PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Georgia. She carried out her postdoctoral studies with focus on electronic structure theory at Colorado State University. In her spare time, she enjoys playing the piano, running marathons, and mentoring high school and college students in the Boston community.