Jo Handelsman

Dr. Jo Handelsman is the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as well as a Vilas Research Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. In her previous role, she was appointed by former President Barack Obama as the Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy where she served for three years until January 2017. She received her Ph.D. at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in Molecular Biology and has since authored over 100 papers, 30 editorials and 5 books. She is responsible for groundbreaking studies in microbial communication and work in the field of metagenomics. Notably, she received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Obama in 2011, and in 2012, Nature named her one of "ten people who mattered this year" for her research on gender bias in science.