JL Weissman

Adjunct Instructor

Dr. JL Weissman (they/she) is a computational biologist studying how microbes survive and thrive across diverse environments. They develop new tools to infer what microbes are doing and can do from DNA sequences captured directly from the environment (“metagenomes”). She also has a special interest in using a combination of comparative genomics, population genetics, and mathematical models to understand the ancient and ongoing battle between microbes and their viruses, in particular the many antiviral defense strategies that bacteria and archaea encode on their genomes. She was previously a Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. in Behavior, Ecology, Evolution and Systematics, as well as a graduate certificate in Computation and Mathematics for Biological Networks from the University of Maryland College Park, and her BA in Mathematics and Biology from Bard College.

Two infographic maps of the world labeled BIOGEOTRACES. The one on the left showcases the interpolated max growth rate of prokaryotes, and the one on the right showcases the interpolated max growth rate of eukaryotes.

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