Rob Knight

Rob Knight, Ph.D., is a recognized global leader in microbiome research and a dynamic force behind several significant research initiatives. The Knight lab has produced many of the software tools and laboratory techniques that enabled high-throughput microbiome science. This includes the QIIME pipeline, an open-source bioinformatics and data analysis program that has been used by thousands of microbiome studies.

Rob, along with BiomeSense co-founder Jack Gilbert, also helped co-found the American Gut Project, one of the world’s largest crowdfunded and crowdsourced scientific research projects exploring links between the human gut and diet, health, lifestyle, exercise, and more.

Beyond these projects, Rob has authored or co-authored numerous articles, given a TED Talk viewed by almost 2 million people, and published multiple books to translate the science of the microbiome to a broad audience. Last fall, he received the NIH’s prestigious Pioneer Award to support his research into developing new approaches to enhance healthy microbiomes.