Encyclopedia of Metagenomics

Dr. Nelson is the President of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI). Dr. Nelson has extensive experience in microbial ecology, microbial genomics, microbial physiology and metagenomics. Since joining the JCVI legacy institutes, Dr. Nelson has led several genomic and metagenomic efforts and led the first human metagenomics study that was published in 2006. Additional ongoing studies in her group include metagenomic approaches to study the ecology of the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals, studies on the relationship between the microbiome and various human and animal disease conditions, reference genome sequencing and analysis primarily for the human body and other omics studies. Dr. Nelson received her undergraduate degree from the University of the West Indies and her Ph.D. from Cornell University. She has authored or co-authored over 100 peer reviewed publications and edited three books and is currently Editor-in-Chief of the journal Microbial Ecology. She also serves on the Editorial Boards of BMC Genomics, Giga Science and the Central European Journal of Biology. She is also a standing member of the NRC Committee on Biodefense, a member of the National Academy of Sciences Board of Life Sciences and a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology.