Jo Emily Handelsman (born March 19, 1959 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) is the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

. She is also a Vilas Research Professor and a

Howard Hughes Medical Institute The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) is an American non-profit medical research organization based in Chevy Chase, Maryland. It was founded in 1953 by Howard Hughes, an American business magnate, investor, record-setting pilot, engineer, fi ...

Professor. Dr. Handelsman was appointed by President Barack Obama as the Associate Director for Science at the White House

Office of Science and Technology Policy An office is a space where an organization's employees perform administrative work in order to support and realize objects and goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific d ...

, where she served for three years until January 2017. She has been editor-in-chief of the academic journal ''

DNA and Cell Biology ''DNA and Cell Biology'' is a scientific journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., and covers topics related to DNA and cell biology, such as: *Gene structure, function and regulation * Molecular medicine *Cellular organelles *Protein biosyn ...

'' and author of books on scientific education, most notably ''Scientific Teaching''.

Education

Handelsman earned her

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in

agronomy Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and ...

from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

in 1979 and her Ph.D. in

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and phys ...

from the

in 1984.

Career

Handelsman secured a faculty position in plant pathology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1985. She remained at Wisconsin until 2009, and then took a position at the Yale University Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology in 2010. Her research involves the study of

microorganism A microorganism, or microbe,, ''mikros'', "small") and ''organism'' from the el, ὀργανισμός, ''organismós'', "organism"). It is usually written as a single word but is sometimes hyphenated (''micro-organism''), especially in old ...

s present in soil and insect gut. She is responsible for coining the term

metagenomics Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental or clinical samples by a method called sequencing. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, community genomics or microb ...

and is particularly known for her work in pioneering the use of functional

to study antibiotic resistance. She has published books and held workshops on scientific teaching, for which she is recognized nationally. She is an active researcher and advocate of women in science issues. One of Handelsman's seminal studies found that the gender of a name on a science resume affected a professor's inclination to hire, mentor, and pay applicants for a lab position. She was co-director of the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute and was the first president of the Rosalind Franklin Society. In 2008 she received the Alice C. Evans Award. In 2011 she was awarded the Presidential Award for Science Mentoring, which recognizes mentors in science or engineering. In 2015 she gave the third annual Patrusky Lecture.

Honors and awards

She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a Fellow in 2019.

Bibliography

*''Scientific Teaching'' (2006) () *''Entering Mentoring:A Seminar to Train a New Generation of Scientists'' (2008) ()

References

External links

Interview with Handelsman
by CBE: Life Sciences Education
Jo Handelsman's Short Talk: "The Practice of Mentoring"
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Handelsman, Jo 1959 births American microbiologists Cornell University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences alumni Howard Hughes Medical Investigators Living people Office of Science and Technology Policy officials University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Agricultural and Life Sciences alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Yale University faculty Women microbiologists