Jonathan Andrew Eisen (born August 31, 1968) is an American

evolutionary biologist Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life for ...

, currently working at

University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...

. His academic research is in the fields of

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

and

microbiology Microbiology () is the scientific study of microorganisms, those being unicellular (single cell), multicellular (cell colony), or acellular (lacking cells). Microbiology encompasses numerous sub-disciplines including virology, bacteriology, prot ...

and he is the academic editor-in-chief of the

open access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which research outputs are distributed online, free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 definition), or libre op ...

journal ''

PLOS Biology ''PLOS Biology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering all aspects of biology. Publication began on October 13, 2003. It is the first journal published by the Public Library of Science. The editor-in-chief is Nonia Pariente. In ad ...

''.Jonathan Eisen: Meet your microbes (TEDMED 2012)
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Education

Eisen completed his undergraduate studies at

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

in 1990, earning an

AB degree Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...

in biology. He graduated as a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common Academic degree, degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields ...

from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1998 with a thesis on the evolution of DNA repair genes, proteins, and processes in 1998, supervised by Philip Hanawalt.

Research

Eisen's research focuses on the origin of novelty, how new processes and functions originate in living things. To study this, he focuses on sequencing and analyzing genomes of organisms, especially microbes and using

phylogenomic Phylogenomics is the intersection of the fields of evolution and genomics. The term has been used in multiple ways to refer to analysis that involves genome data and evolutionary reconstructions. It is a group of techniques within the larger fields ...

analysis. Eisen together with

Nick Barton Nicholas Hamilton Barton (born 30 August 1955) is a British evolutionary biologist. Education Barton was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge where he graduated with a first-class degree in Biological Sciences (Cambridge) in 1976 and gained his ...

, Derek E.G. Briggs, David B. Goldstein, and Nipam H. Patel is an author of the undergraduate textbook, ''Evolution'', that integrates molecular biology, genomics, and human genetics with traditional evolutionary studies. According to

Google Scholar Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. Released in beta in November 2004, the Google Scholar index includes p ...

his most cited peer-reviewed papers are on the genome sequence of ''

Plasmodium falciparum ''Plasmodium falciparum'' is a Unicellular organism, unicellular protozoan parasite of humans, and the deadliest species of ''Plasmodium'' that causes malaria in humans. The parasite is transmitted through the bite of a female ''Anopheles'' mosqu ...

'', sequencing the

Sargasso Sea The Sargasso Sea () is a region of the Atlantic Ocean bounded by four currents forming an ocean gyre. Unlike all other regions called seas, it has no land boundaries. It is distinguished from other parts of the Atlantic Ocean by its charac ...

and a paper on the genome of ''

Thermotoga maritima ''Thermotoga maritima'' is a hyperthermophilic, anaerobic organism that is a member of the order Thermotogales. ''T. maritima'' is well known for its ability to produce hydrogen (clean energy) and it is the only fermentative bacterium that has be ...

''. Prior to working at UC Davis he was an Investigator at

The Institute for Genomic Research The J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI) is a non-profit genomics research institute founded by J. Craig Venter, Ph.D. in October 2006. The institute was the result of consolidating four organizations: the Center for the Advancement of ...

. Eisen and his work is routinely discussed in the scientific and popular press. Examples include a New York Times article on the Genomic Encyclopedia of Bacteria and Archaea in 2009 and extensive coverage of work on searching for a "fourth domain" of life. In addition, Eisen's blogging and microblogging work is frequently written about including for example. His brother

Michael Eisen Michael Bruce Eisen (born April 13, 1967) is an American computational biologist and the editor-in-chief of the journal eLife. He is a professor of genetics, genomics and development at University of California, Berkeley. He is a leading advocate o ...

is also a biologist.

Awards and honors

Eisen was awarded the

Benjamin Franklin Award (Bioinformatics) The Benjamin Franklin Award is an annual award for Open Access in the Life Sciences presented by Bioinformatics.org to an individual who has, in his or her practice, promoted free and open access to the materials and methods used in the life scien ...

in 2011 and the

Esquire Magazine ''Esquire'' is an American men's magazine. Currently published in the United States by Hearst Communications, it also has more than 20 international editions. Founded in 1933, it flourished during the Great Depression and World War II under t ...

's Best and Brightest in 2002.The Maverick – Esquire
He was awarded the Walter J. Gores Award, Faculty Achievement Awards for Excellence in Teaching. He was elected a Fellow of the American Society for Microbiology (FAAM).

References

External links

Jonathan Eisen's Lab
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Eisen, Jonathan 1960s births Living people 21st-century American biologists American bioinformaticians Harvard College alumni Stanford University alumni University of California, Davis faculty Articles containing video clips American scientists Fellows of the American Academy of Microbiology