Barbara Engelhardt, PhD, is a senior investigator at Gladstone Institutes. She is also a professor in the Department of Biomedical Data Science at Stanford University.

Engelhardt opened her lab at Gladstone in 2021. Prior to joining Princeton in 2014, she was an assistant professor in biostatistics and bioinformatics and statistical sciences at Duke University. She graduated from Stanford University, received her PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from UC Berkeley, supported by an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and trained as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago. Engelhardt also spent 2 years working at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a summer at Google Research, and a year at 23andMe.

Her research interests involve developing statistical models and methods for the analysis of high-dimensional biomedical data, with a goal of understanding the underlying biological mechanisms of complex phenotypes and human disease.

Engelhardt received the 2021 Overton Prize from the International Society for Computational Biology, one of the top awards in this field.

Chris Jiggins is an evolutionary biologist who studies adaptation and the origin of species. In Heliconius butterflies, his work has shown how hybridisation and subsequent introgression of genes between species can generate novel wing patterns. This work has contributed to a fundamental shift in how we view the tree of life. In fact the ‘tree’ is much more of a ‘network’: reticulate relationships are seen in the genomes of species and even among distantly related lineages. His work has also highlighted the importance of gene regulatory changes in the evolution of diversity, and the repeated use of the same genes in evolutionary change, so called ‘hotspot’ genes.

His book ‘The Ecology and Evolution of Heliconius Butterflies’ (2017) provides an overview of this work and brings together several decades of research on these butterflies. Chris also works more broadly in insect genomics, identifying genes underlying insecticide resistance in pests and sequencing the genome of the biocatalyst species, the black soldier fly.

Dr. Rokhsar joined the DOE Joint Genome Institute in 2000 as the founding Associate Director for Computational Genomics, and led the computational efforts directed towards the sequencing, annotation, and analysis of three human chromosomes. After successful completion of the human genome project, Professor Dr. Rokhsar ’s team has continued to develop computational methods applicable to the diverse eukaryotic species, which they have applied and refined in the sequencing and evolutionary analysis of over fifty plant and animal genomes. He currently leads the JGI’s Computational Genomics group, and is past lead of the Eukaryotic Genome Program (2010-2019), and JGI Chief Informatics Officer (2013-2016). Dr. Rokhsar joined the faculty of University of California, Berkeley in 1989, as a member of the Physics Department and in 2002 he became a Professor of Genetics, Genomics and Development after his research interests shifted from condensed matter physics to computational biology, genomics and evolutionary biology. Dr. Rokhsar’s research is focused on understanding the origin, evolution, and diversity of plants and animals by combining computational genome analysis, sequence-based genetic methods, and comparative developmental biology. In addition to this evolutionary focus, his work on plant genomics is targeted towards the development of improved biofuel feedstocks and understanding and ultimately assisting the adaptation of plants to changing environments.

Dr. Mardis is Co-Executive Director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, and holds the Nationwide Foundation Endowed Chair in Genomic Medicine. She also teaches as a Professor of Pediatrics at the Ohio State University College of Medicine. Dr. Mardis served as President of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR) from 2019-2020. Dr. Mardis’s group was one of the first to use next-generation sequencing to compare a cancer patient’s tumor DNA with normal tissue DNA to help identify mutations driving cancer growth. Her research interests focus on the application of next-generation sequencing to characterize cancer genomes and transcriptomes, and to support therapeutic decision-making. Her translational research efforts devise sequencing-based diagnostics, decision-support tools and databases, and the use of genomics to design personalized cancer vaccines.

Hernán Morales studied Biology at UNAM, Mexico, and completed an MSc at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. He earned his PhD from Monash University, Australia, and joined the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen as a Marie Curie Fellow in 2019. In 2023, he was awarded an ERC Starting Grant and a FORMAS ECR grant to establish the Evolutionary and Conservation Genomics Group 

Professor Jack A Gilbert earned his Ph.D. from Unilever and Nottingham University, UK in 2002 and received his postdoctoral training at Queens University, Canada. From 2005-2010 he was a senior scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK; and from 2010-2018 he was Group Leader for Microbial Ecology at Argonne National Laboratory, a Professor of Surgery, and Director of The Microbiome Center at University of Chicago. In 2019 he moved to University of California San Diego, where he is a Professor in Pediatrics and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Associate Vice Chancellor for Marine Science, and Director of both the Microbiome and Metagenomics Center and the Center for Soil Health.   

Dr. Gilbert uses molecular analysis to test fundamental hypotheses in microbial ecology. He cofounded the Earth Microbiome Project and American Gut Project, as well as is the founding Editor in Chief of mSystems journal. He has authored more than 450 peer reviewed publications and book chapters on microbial ecology. In 2017 he co-authored “Dirt is Good”, a popular science guide to the microbiome and children’s health. Dr. Gilbert founded BiomeSense Inc in 2018 to produce automated microbiome sensors. In 2021 he became the UCSD PI and Consortium Chair for the National Institute of Health’s $175M Nutrition for Precision Medicine program. In 2023 he became President of Applied Microbiology International and won the IFF Microbiome Science Prize, and in 2025 was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology. 

Job Dekker is a molecular biologist and geneticist widely known for his studies of the mechanisms of chromosome folding. He is particularly recognized for his development of chromosome conformation capture methodologies that are used to determine the spatial organization of complete genomes. His studies have led to detailed insights into how interphase and mitotic chromosomes are folded, and how cells fold, unfold and refold their chromosomes as cells proceed through the cell cycle. Dekker was born in Soest, the Netherlands, and received his undergraduate and graduate training at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He was a post-doctoral fellow in molecular biology with Nancy Kleckner at Harvard University. He joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School in 2003. He is currently Professor in the Department of Systems Biology, the Joseph J. Byrne Chair in Biomedical Research, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 2015. He is an EMBO Associate Member, a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, and an International Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hinde earned a PhD in Anthropology at UCLA, completed post-doctoral training in neuroscience at the California National Primate Research Center, and then launched her faculty career in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. Now an Associate Professor, Hinde is the Director of the Comparative Lactation Lab in the Center for Evolution and Medicine and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.

Described as “The Milk Maven” in the inaugural Grist 50 list of “innovators, organizers and visionaries who will lead us toward a more sustainable future,” Hinde’s work was highlighted for tackling social justice in health and research. From considering how milk feeds microbes to researching how milk shapes infant behavior , her research has been featured in the New York Times, National Geographic, La Presse, Wall Street Journal, Quartz and more. Hinde has been recognized with Early Career Awards from the International Society for Research in Human Milk and Lactation and the American Society of Primatologists for making outstanding, original contributions to these fields as a young investigator.

Dr. Marylyn D. Ritchie is the Edward Rose, MD and Elizabeth Kirk Rose, MD Professor of Genetics and Director of the Institute for Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She is also Co-Director of the Penn Medicine BioBank and Vice President of Research Informatics in the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Dr. Ritchie is an expert in translational bioinformatics, with a focus on developing, applying, and disseminating algorithms, methods, and tools integrating electronic health records (EHR) with genomics. Dr. Ritchie has over 20 years of experience in translational bioinformatics and has authored over 400 publications. Dr. Ritchie was appointed as a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics (ACMI) in 2020. Dr. Ritchie was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2021; she is being recognized “for paradigm-changing research demonstrating the utility of electronic health records for identifying clinical diseases or phenotypes that can be integrated with genomic data from biobanks for genomic medicine discovery and implementation science.”

Dr. Dennis’s research focuses on identifying genes and variants contributing to neurodevelopment impacting unique human cognitive features as well as disorders, including autism and epilepsy. Her group employs innovative genome sequencing approaches to identify variants/genes as well as functional genomics and model organisms (namely, zebrafish) to understand their functions in neurodevelopment.

Neville Sanjana received an AB in English Literature and a BS in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University, where he worked with Joshua Tenenbaum on Bayesian models of human cognition. He completed his Ph.D. in the laboratory of Sebastian Seung, where his research included protein micropatterning technologies, plasticity of central synapses with neuromodulators, long-term time-lapse imaging of developing cortical neurons, and the interaction between neural activity and RNA editing.

Kathryn Paige Harden is Professor in the Department of Psychology at UT, where she leads the Developmental Behavior Genetics lab and co-directs the Texas Twin Project. She is the author of The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality (Princeton, 2021) and Original Sin: On The Genetics of Vice, The Problem of Blame, and The Future of Forgiveness (Random House, forthcoming). Dr. Harden received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Virginia and completed her clinical internship at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School before moving to Austin in 2009. She has published over 100 scientific articles on genetic influences on complex human behavior, including child cognitive development, academic achievement, risk-taking, mental health, sexual activity, and childbearing. Her research has been featured in popular media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and The New Yorker. She was honored by the American Psychological Association for her distinguished scientific contributions to the study of genetics and human individual differences. In addition to research, Dr. Harden teaches Introduction to Psychology in a synchronous massive online class format.

Scott Edwards is Alexander Agassiz Professor of Zoology and Curator of Ornithology in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University. He came to Harvard in December 2003 after serving as a faculty for 9 years in the Zoology Department and the Burke Museum at the University of Washington, Seattle.  His research focuses on diverse aspects of avian biology, including evolutionary history and biogeography, disease ecology, population genetics and comparative genomics.  He has conducted fieldwork in phylogeography in Australia since 1987 and conducted some of the first phylogeographic analyses based on DNA sequencing.  He did a postdoctoral fellowship in immunogenetics at the University of Florida and gained experience with studying the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of birds, an important gene complex for interactions of birds and infectious diseases, pathogens and mate choice.  An important system for studying these issues is the ongoing epizootic involving House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) and the bacterial pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum.  His work on the MHC led him to study the large-scale structure of the avian genome and informed his current interest in using comparative genomics to study the genetic basis of phenotypic innovation in birds.  In the last 10 years Dr. Edwards has helped develop novel methods for estimating phylogenetic trees from multilocus DNA sequence data.  His recent work uses comparative genomics in diverse contexts to study macroevolutionary patterns in birds, including the origin of feathers and the evolution of flightlessness. 

From 2013-2015 Scott served as Division Director of the Division of Biological Infrastructure at the US National Science Foundation, where he oversaw a staff of 22, an annual research budget of $120M (USD), and managed funding programs focused on undergraduate research, postdoctoral fellowships, natural history collections and field stations, and cyber- and other infrastructure for all areas of biology, from molecular to ecosystem science.  He has served as President of three international scientific societies based in the US: the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Society of Systematic Biologists, and the American Genetic Association, each of which publishes a scientific journal and has memberships ranging from 500 – 2500 scientists and students.  He has served on the National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration, the Senior Advisory Boards of the NSF-funded US National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) and the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS), and on the

Tom Gilbert is Professor of Palaeogenomics at the Globe Institute, University of Copenhagen, and Director of the DNRF Center for Evolutionary Hologenomics. Tom received his BA (Biological Sciences) and DPhil (Molecular Evolution/ancient DNA) from Oxford University, and then spent 2 years at the University of Arizona working on untangling the origin of the HIV-1 epidemic. In 2005 he moved as a Marie Curie Fellow to the University of Copenhagen, where he has been employed ever since in variously the Niels Bohr Institute, Biological Institute, Natural History Museum of Denmark, and since 2019, the Globe Institute. While for most of his career his work studied the genomic basis of evolution of animals and plants, over the past decade his interests have turned to how microbial partners shape this relationship, and what consequences this might have to us.