Board of Editors
Founding Editor in Chief (2025) 
Jack A. Gilbert, Founding Editor in Chief of mSystems®, earned his Ph.D. from Unilever and Nottingham University, UK, in 2002, and received his postdoctoral training at Queens University, Canada. From 2005 to 2010, he was a senior scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK, and from 2010 to 2018, he was a Professor of Surgery and Director of The Microbiome Center at the University of Chicago. In 2019, he moved to University of California San Diego, where he is a Professor in the Department of Pediatrics and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. He is also Group Leader for Microbial Ecology at Argonne National Laboratory and the Yeoh Ghim Seng Visiting Professorship in Surgery at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Gilbert uses molecular analysis to test fundamental hypotheses in microbial ecology. He cofounded the Earth Microbiome Project and American Gut Project. He has authored more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and book chapters on microbial ecology. In 2014, he was recognized on Crain’s Chicago Business 40 Under 40 List, and in 2015, he was listed as one of the 50 most influential scientists by Business Insider and in the Brilliant Ten by Popular Scientist. In 2016, he won the Altemeier Prize from the Surgical Infection Society and the WH Pierce Prize from the Society for Applied Microbiology for research excellence. He also coauthored “Dirt is Good,” published in 2017, a popular science guide to the microbiome and children’s health.
Senior Editors
Ileana M. Cristea (2025)
Princeton University
Research Interests: Virus-host interactions, immune signaling, virology, proteomics, multi-omics
Pieter C. Dorrestein (2025)
University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Metabolomics, metabolite systems biology
Jonathan A. Eisen (2025)
University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Microbial evolution and phylogenetics, comparative genomics, phylogenomics, host-microbe and host-microbiome interactions
Julie A. Huber (2025)
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Research Interests: Marine microbial ecology, subsurface ecosystems, and life in extreme environments
Janet K. Jansson (2025)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Research Interests: Multi-omic analysis of terrestrial and human ecosystems
Rob Knight (2025)
University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Human microbiome, microbial community ecology, informatics
Katie Pollard (2025)
Gladstone Institutes
Research Interests: Multi-omic network modeling of soil, marine, and human ecosystems
Jeroen Raes (2025)
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
Research Interests: Genomic and metagenomic systems bioinformatics, network modeling in human and marine systems
Pamela A. Silver (2021)
Harvard Medical School
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, gene circuits, genome engineering, gut microbiome, genetic sensors, gene expression
Nicole S. Webster (2022)
Australian Institute of Marine Science
Research Interests: Coral reef microbiology, marine microbial symbioses, impacts of climate change on microbial symbioses
Katrine Whiteson (2025)
University of California, Irvine
Research Interests: Metabolomics, metagenomics, microbial ecology, phage, fermentation, polymicrobial infection, microbial interactions, human microbiome
Jian Xu (2022)
Qingdao Institute of BioEnergy and Bioprocess Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Research Interests: Human microbiome, microalgae, single-cell technologies, synthetic biology, scientific instrument development
Editors
Sebastián Abades (2022)
Universidad Mayor
Research Interests: Community ecology, extreme environments, statistical ecology, ecosystem processes driven by microbes, complex systems
Caroline M. Ajo-Franklin (2022)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, bioenergetics, bioelectronics, protein self-assembly, biomaterials
Michaeline B.N. Albright (2023)
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, microbial community assembly, microbiome engineering, carbon and nitrogen cycling, environmental microbiology, global change
Rosie Alegado (2022)
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, symbiosis, bacterial genetics, microbial eukaryotes, microbial ecology, marine microbiology, evolutionary biology
Sarah M. Allard (2022)
University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Environmental microbiology, agricultural microbiomes, food safety, water quality, water reuse
Christopher R. Anderton (2023)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Research Interests: Interkingdom interactions, rhizosphere, metabolomics, imaging
Mani Arumugam (2021)
University of Copenhagen
Research Interests: Microbiome, microbiota, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, bioinformatics, systems biology
Sergio E. Baranzini (2023)
University of California, San Francisco
Research Interests: Genomics/genetics, bioinformatics, network biology, immunology/autoimmunity
Kim E. Barrett (2023)
University of California San Diego
Research Interests: Host-pathogen interactions, gastrointestinal physiology and pathophysiology, diarrheal diseases, probiotics
Rob Beiko (2021)
Dalhousie University
Research Interests: Human microbiome, microbial community ecology, bioinformatics, microbial evolution, lateral gene transfer
Hans C. Bernstein (2022)
UiT – The Arctic University of Norway
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, microbiome engineering, synthetic biology, bioprocess engineering, algae
Holly Bik (2021)
University of Georgia
Research Interests: Marine microbiology, microbial eukaryotes, evolutionary biology, environmental microbiology, microbial ecology, nematodes, benthic ecology, metabarcoding, bioinformatics, rRNA
Seth R. Bordenstein (2021)
Vanderbilt University
Research Interests: Symbiosis, bacteriophage, evolution, genomics, microbiome, speciation, holobiont, hologenome
Nick Bouskill (2021)
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Research Interests: Soil carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus cycling, terrestrial/aquatic microbiology, trait-based modeling
Jeff S. Bowman (2023)
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Research Interests: Biological oceanography, marine microbiology, astrobiology
Vanni Bucci (2021)
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
Research Interests: Host-microbiome mathematical modeling, microbiome data analytics, microbial engineering
Davide Bulgarelli (2021)
University of Dundee
Research Interests: Plant microbiota/microbiome, rhizosphere, molecular plant-microbe interactions, crop genetics, agricultural biologicals
Zackery Bulman (2021)
University of Illinois at Chicago
Research Interests: Antibiotics, evolution of bacterial resistance, genomics, pharmacology
Mariana Byndloss (2022)
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Research Interests: Intestinal microbiota, host-microbe interactions, bacterial metabolism, bacterial enteric pathogens, intestinal inflammation, intestinal epithelial metabolism
J. Gregory Caporaso (2021)
Northern Arizona University
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, software engineering, human microbiome
Nicholas Chia (2022)
Mayo Clinic
Research Interests: Microbiome, colon cancer, metabolic networks, systems biology
Haiyan Chu (2021)
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Research Interests: Soil microbiology, microbial ecology, microbial biogeography, agricultural management, climate change
Hiutung Chu (2022)
University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, intestinal homeostasis, mucosal immunology, beneficial microbes
David W. Cleary (2021)
University of Southampton
Research Interests: Human microbiome, bacterial genomics, microbial ecology
Cynthia H. Collins (2022)
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, protein engineering, microbiome, quorum sensing
Marc D. Cook (2023)
North Carolina A&T State University
Research Interests: Exercise physiology, immunology, endothelial and vascular function, hypertension, gut dysbiosis
Emily K. Cope (2022)
Northern Arizona University
Research Interests: Human microbiome, microbial ecology, host-microbe interactions, bacterial-fungal interactions, respiratory microbiome
Paul D. Cotter (2021)
Teagasc Food Research Centre
Research Interests: Food microbiota, gut microbiota, bacteriocins
Li Cui (2023)
Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Research Interests: Single-cell technologies, antibiotic resistance and persistence, environmental and urban microbiology, beneficial microbes in soil
Lawrence A. David (2022)
Duke University
Research Interests: Microbiome, diet, nutrition, computational biology, microbial ecology
Domitilla Del Vecchio (2022)
MIT
Research Interests: Control theory, dynamical systems, mathematical models
Paola Flórez de Sessions (2021)
Oxford Nanopore Technologies
Research Interests: Microbial genomics for viral, bacterial, fungal, and parasitic entities
Aurélie Deveau (2021)
UMR1136 INRA Université de Lorraine
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, fungal-bacterial interactions, mycorrhizal symbiosis, tree and soil microbiomes
Joshua Elias (2021)
Stanford University
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, metaproteomics, mass spectrometry, computational tools, antigen presentation
Joanne B. Emerson (2022)
University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Viral ecology, microbial ecology, soil and rhizosphere microbiomes, omics
Danilo Ercolini (2021)
University of Naples Federico II
Research Interests: Food microbiology, microbial food spoilage, food fermentation, human microbiome, diet, fecal microbiota, salivary microbiota
Karoline Faust (2023)
KU Leuven
Research Interests: Microbial systems biology, microbial ecology, bioinformatics
David Fenyo (2022)
NYU School of Medicine
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, proteomics, mass spectrometry
Theodore M. Flynn (2021)
California Department of Water Resources
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, geomicrobiology, anaerobic microbiology, biogeochemistry, soil microbiology, subsurface microbiology, aquatic microbiology, biogeochemical cycling
Anthony Fodor (2021)
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, genomics, metagenomics, microbial ecology
Marta M. Gaglia (2023)
Tufts University
Research Interests: Virus-host interactions, gene regulation, transcriptomics, virology
Michela Gambino (2023)
University of Copenhagen
Research Interests: Biofilm, oxidative stress, phage biology, food safety, cultural heritage, microbiome, phage-host interaction
Melanie Gareau (2022)
University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Microbiota-gut-brain axis, bacterial infection, host-microbe interactions, gut microbiome
Neha Garg (2023)
Georgia Institute of Technology
Research Interests: Burkholderia, Pseudomonas, zooxanthellae, metabolomics, mass spectrometry, natural products, coral diseases, microbial interactions, microbe-host interactions
Daniel Garrido (2022)
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Research Interests: Systems biology, food microbiology, gut microbiome, microbial genomics, microbial ecology
Nandita Garud (2023)
University of California, Los Angeles
Research Interests: Evolution, population genetics, microbiome, genomics
Sean M. Gibbons (2021)
Institute for Systems Biology
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, evolution, bioinformatics
Sarah Glaven (2022)
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
Research Interests: Bioelectrochemical systems, microbial electrosynthesis, microbial communities, synthetic biology, environmental microbiology
Emily B. Graham (2023)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, molecular-to-ecosystem function, disturbance ecology, biogeochemistry
Casey S. Greene (2022)
University of Pennsylvania
Research Interests: Computational biology
Marcelino Gutiérrez (2022)
City of Knowledge
Research Interests: Natural products, mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance, microbiology
Steve Hallam (2021)
The University of British Columbia
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, symbiosis, metabolic networks, synthetic biology and ecology, bioinformatics and big data analysis, deep device mining and genetic sensors
Tamia A. Harris-Tryon (2022)
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Research Interests: Innate immunity, skin biology, sebaceous gland biology, host-microbe interactions, antimicrobial proteins, microbiome
Michelle Heck (2023)
Cornell University
Research Interests: Plant-microbe interactions, insect vectors/vector biology, symbiosis, virology, evolutionary biology, proteomics, protein interactions, cell biology
Matthias Hess (2022)
University of California, Davis
Research Interests: Anaerobic fermentation, anaerobic fungi, carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes), gastrointestinal microbiology, microbe-host interactions, microbial dark matter, microbial ecology, natural product discovery, rumen microbiology, rumen virome
Sarah M. Hird (2022)
University of Connecticut
Research Interests: Host-associated microbiomes, wild animal microbiomes, evolution, microbial ecology, comparative biology
Laura A. Hug (2023)
University of Waterloo
Research Interests: : Environmental microbiology, contaminant site microbiology, bioremediation, meta-omics, phylogenomics
Angela D. Kent (2022)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, community ecology, nitrogen cycle, microbial processes, built environment, managed systems
Jonathan L. Klassen (2023)
University of Connecticut
Research Interests: Insect-microbe symbioses, microbe-microbe interactions, genomics, chemical ecology, philosophy of science
Tal Korem (2022)
Columbia University Irving Medical Center
Research Interests: Microbial genomics, metagenomics and multi-omics, machine learning, genomic plasticity, microbial ecology, metabolic modeling, microbiome data analysis
Rup Lal (2021)
University of Delhi
Research Interests: Microbial diversity/genomics, comparative genomics/metagenomics, environmental microbiology, taxogenomics
Chaz Langelier (2022)
University of California, San Francisco
Research Interests: Clinical metagenomics, infectious disease diagnostics, antimicrobial resistance, transcriptional profiling, molecular epidemiology, infectious disease pathogenesis, respiratory disease pathogenesis
Morgan Langille (2021)
Dalhousie University
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, microbiome, human-microbe interactions, metagenomic prediction, frailty, aging, exercise, drug metabolism
Simon Lax (2023)
MIT
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, community ecology, metagenomics
Manuel Liebeke (2021)
Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology
Research Interests: Metabolomics, mass spectrometry, host-microbe interaction, cell-cell communication, metabolites
Xiaoxia Lin (2023)
University of Michigan
Steve Lindemann (2023)
Purdue University
Research Interests: Microbial community assembly and dynamics, autotroph-heterotroph interactions, microbial nitrogen cycling, host-pathogen interactions
Miguel Lurgi (2023)
Swansea University
Research Interests: Microbial community ecology, complex networks, theoretical and computational ecology, host-microbe and microbe-microbe interaction networks
Holly L. Lutz (2023)
University of California, San Diego
Research Interests: Host-symbiont ecology and evolution, wildlife microbiome, biodiversity and molecular systematics, bioinformatics, metagenomics
Rachel Mackelprang (2022)
California State University Northridge
Research Interests: Metagenomics, genomics, permafrost, climate change, astrobiology, exobiology, bioinformatics, microbiome
Thulani Makhalanyane (2022)
University of Pretoria
Research Interests: Environmental microbiology, Antarctic and Southern Ocean microbiology, metagenomics, microbial ecology of extreme environments
Mark J. Mandel (2021)
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Research Interests: Bacterial genetics, host specificity, symbiosis, signal transduction, biofilm formation
Chaysavanh Manichanh (2021)
Vall d'Hebron Research Institute (Ed. Mediterranea)
Research Interests: Inflammatory bowel disease, human gut microbiome, microbial translocation, irritable bowel syndrome, cirrhosis, low-biomass samples
Christopher W. Marshall (2021)
Marquette University
Research Interests: Microbial ecology and evolution, bioelectrochemistry, biogeochemistry, antibiotic resistance, bioinformatics
Ryan McClure (2022)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Research Interests: Transcriptomics, soil microbiomes, host-pathogen interactions, network analysis
Lee Ann McCue (2022)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Research Interests: Sequence alignment algorithms, comparative genomics, bioinformatics, data mining
John W. McGrath (2021)
Queen's University Belfast
Research Interests: Phosphorus cycling, wastewater microbiology
Marnix Medema (2022)
Wageningen University
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, natural products, microbiome, evolution, metagenomics, integrative omics, synthetic biology
Jessica L. Metcalf (2023)
Colorado State University
Research Interests: Forensic microbiology, wildlife and domestic animal microbiomes, ancestral human gut microbiomes
Barbara Methe (2023)
University of Pittsburgh
Research Interests: Microbial communities, microbiome, microbial ecology, metagenomics, meta-omics, genomics, microbiology
Kat Milligan-Myhre (2022)
University of Connecticut
Research Interests: Host-microbe interactions, microbiology, microbiota, microbiomes, immunology, developmental biology, diversifying STEM
Renuka R. Nayak (2023)
University of California, San Francisco
Research Interests: Human microbiome, rheumatology and autoimmune disease, microbial drug metabolism, patient cohorts, microbial genomics, metagenomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, gnotobiotic mouse models, bioinformatics, network analysis, machine learning
Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (2023)
NIAID, NIH
Research Interests: Innate immunity, host-pathogen interactions, immune cell signaling, protein complexes, post-translational modifications, proteomics
James P. O’Dwyer (2022)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Research Interests: Theoretical ecology, phylogenetics, mathematical biology
Pedro H. Oliveira (2021)
Mount Sinai School of Medicine
Research Interests: Comparative genomics/epigenomics, metatranscriptomics, genetic instability, clinical microbiology, restriction-modification systems, SMRT sequencing
Jillian Petersen (2023)
University of Vienna
Research Interests: Symbiosis, chemosynthesis, deep sea, genomics, metagenomics, marine microbiology
Rachel Poretsky (2023)
University of Illinois at Chicago
Research Interests: Microbial ecology and biogeochemistry, bacterial diversity, and community structure and interactions in natural and engineered environments
Carla Porto (2021)
State University of Maringá
Research Interests: Human skin ecosystem, cosmetic R&D, metabolomics, mass spectrometry, natural products, structural elucidation, biological activity, biocatalysis, enzymatic screening, biotransformations, microbial ecology and biodiversity
Mônica T. Pupo (2023)
University of Sao Paulo
Research Interests: Microbial natural products, structural elucidation, microbial interactions, symbiont microorganisms, chemical ecology, nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry
Jean-Baptiste Raina (2022)
University of Technology Sydney
Research Interests: Marine microbial ecology, microbial symbioses, coral reef microbiology, sulfur cycling, high-resolution imaging
Michael S. Rappe (2022)
University of Hawai'i at Manoa
Research Interests: Marine microbiology, deep biosphere, microbial ecology and evolution, comparative and population genomics, astrobiology, exobiology
Thomas Rattei (2022)
University of Vienna
Research Interests: Bioinformatics, computational genomics and metagenomics, molecular host-microbe interactions, computational methods and databases
John F. Rawls (2021)
Duke University School of Medicine
Research Interests: Intestinal microbiota/microbiome, intestinal physiology, zebrafish, fish, chromatin biology, nutrition, innate immunity, lipid metabolism
Tiffany A. Reese (2023)
UT Southwestern Medical Center
Research Interests: Co-infection, herpesviruses, intestinal helminth infection, host-microbe interactions, innate immunity
Alejandra Rodriguez-Verdugo (2023)
University of California, Irvine
Research Interests: Microbial adaptation, experimental evolution, eco-evolutionary dynamics, synthetic communities evolution
Gail L. Rosen (2022)
Drexel University
Research Interests: Microbiome informatics, machine learning, metagenomics
Laura M. Sanchez (2021)
University of California, Santa Cruz
Research Interests: Mass spectrometry, natural products, microbes, host-pathogen interactions, microbial communities, chemistry
Naseer Sangwan (2023)
Cleveland Clinic
Research Interests: Microbiome, microbial genomics
Christopher W. Schadt (2023)
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Research Interests: Microbial communities, soil ecology and biogeochemistry, plant-microbe interactions, fungal ecology
Frank Schmidt (2023)
Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar
Research Interests: Proteomics, immunoproteomics, infection disease, proteasome, bioinformatics, automatization
Nicola Segata (2021)
University of Trento
Research Interests: Microbiome, microbiota, metagenomics, microbial genomics, computational biology, bioinformatics, sequencing, meta-omics, machine, learning, sequence analysis, human microbiome
Ashley Shade (2021)
Michigan State University
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, environmental microbiology, omics, community ecology, statistics
Elizabeth A. Shank (2023)
University of Massachusetts Medical School
Research Interests: Interspecies interactions, cell-cell communication, microbial coculture, chemical signaling, imaging mass spectrometry, secondary (specialized) metabolites, bacterial development/differentiation, cellular heterogeneity, microbial ecology, soil communities
Thomas Sharpton (2021)
Oregon State University
Research Interests: Vertebrate gut microbiome systems biology, host-microbiome interactions, metagenomics, microbial evolution, microbial ecology
Rafael Silva-Rocha (2022)
Universidade de São Paulo
Research Interests: Gene regulation, synthetic biology, systems biology, bioinformatics, metagenomics, protein engineering
Yogendra Singh (2023)
University of Delhi
Research Interests: Bacterial pathogenesis, bacterial diseases, bacterial virulence factors, tuberculosis and anthrax, biochemical pathways, signal transduction in bacteria
James Stegen (2021)
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, eco-evolutionary simulation, integrative hydrobiogeochemistry, null modeling
Jotham Suez (2023)
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Research Interests: Human microbiome, virome, microbial ecology, host-microbe interactions, nutrition, precision medicine
Zarath M. Summers (2023)
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering
Research Interests: Microbial ecology, evolution, interspecies interactions, deep biosphere, extremophiles, subsurface processes
Christoph A. Thaiss (2021)
University of Pennsylvania
Research Interests: Microbiome, chronobiology, immunology, metabolism
Sima Tokajian (2022)
Lebanese American University
Research Interests: Pathogenomics, microbial genomics, ESKAPE pathogens, virulence, antimicrobial resistance, molecular epidemiology
Matt Traxler (2021)
University of California, Berkeley
Research Interests: Actinomycetes, bacterial interactions, transcriptomics, metabolomics, mass spectrometry, natural products
Danielle Tullman-Ercek (2022)
Northwestern University
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, protein engineering, metabolic engineering, biomaterials, nanobiotechnology
Peter J. Turnbaugh (2021)
University of California,
San Francisco
Research Interests: Human microbiome, nutrition, pharmacology, metagenomics, gnotobiotics
Tricia Van Laar (2022)
Fresno State
Research Interests: Microbial pathogenesis, microbial metabolism, antimicrobial resistance and tolerance, microbiome of nonhuman systems
Gilles P. van Wezel (2021)
Leiden University
Research Interests: Streptomyces, actinomycetes, antibiotics, sugar metabolism, primary metabolism, carbon catabolite repression, cell division, microbial development, global regulatory networks
Claudia Vickers (2022)
CSIRO
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, isoprenoids, metabolic engineering
Paul Wilmes (2021)
Campus Belval, University of Luxembourg
Research Interests: Integrated omics, metagenomics, metatranscriptomics, metaproteomics, metabolomics
Benjamin E. Wolfe (2022)
Tufts University
Research Interests: Microbial ecology and evolution, community ecology, microbiomes, microbial interactions, fungal biology, food microbiology, transcriptomics, metagenomics, plant-microbe interactions
Yu-Liang Yang (2023)
Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center
Research Interests: Natural product chemistry, metabolomics, imaging mass spectrometry, antibiotics, biocontrol
Süleyman Yildirim (2022)
Istanbul Medipol University
Research Interests: Microbiota-gut-brain axis, microbial genomics, infectious diseases, systems medicine, food microbiology
Xiao-Hua Zhang (2023)
Ocean University of China
Research Interests: Microbial oceanography, including roles of marine microorganisms in driving biogeochemical cycles, quorum sensing and quorum quenching of marine bacteria, and marine bacterial taxonomy and resource development
Hongwei Zhou (2022)
Southern Medical University
Research Interests: Human
microbiome, laboratory
medicine, chronic diseases
Chairman, Journals Committee
Patrick D. Schloss
Chief Executive Officer
Stefano Bertuzzi
Director, Journals
Melissa Junior
Senior Production Editor
Ellie Ghatineh
Assistant Production Editor
Stefanie Kowalski
Editorial Coordinator
Nicole Glenn