He is a professor in, and chair of, the Department of Human Genetics at the University of Utah School of Medicine, where he holds a H.A.
[1] He served as the president of the American Society of Human Genetics from 2011 to 2012.
[3] He has also studied the genetic basis for, among other conditions, hypertension, inflammatory bowel disease, and congenital limb malformations.
[1] Jorde is married to Debbie Jorde,[4][5] who has two children, Heather Madsen and Logan Madsen[5][4] from a previous marriage, both of whom have the rare genetic conditions of primary ciliary dyskinesia and Miller syndrome.
After marrying Debbie, Professor Jorde decided to map the genome of his wife, her two children, Heather and Logan Madsen, and the children's biological father in order to determine the cause of these conditions, which were later determined to be genetic.