Rita Rossi Colwell is an American environmental microbiologist and scientific administrator. Colwell holds degrees in bacteriology, genetics, and oceanography and studies infectious diseases. Colwell is the founder and Chair of CosmosID, a bioinformatics company. From 1998 to 2004, she was the 11th Director and 1st female Director of the National Science Foundation. She has served on the board of directors of EcoHealth Alliance since 2012.
Joan Marjorie Dingley was one of the pioneer women of New Zealand science. She worked for the DSIR Plant Diseases Division from 1941 to 1976, becoming the head of mycology. She was a major research scientist in New Zealand for both laboratory and field-based plant pathology, and for taxonomic mycology.
Maria Margaret Klawe is a computer scientist and served as the fifth president of Harvey Mudd College from 2006 to 2023. Born in Toronto in 1951, she became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009. She was previously Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Princeton University. She is known for her advocacy for women in STEM fields.
Thomas Eugene Shenk is an American virologist. He is currently Emeritus Professor of Life Sciences in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University.
Nina Vsevolod Fedoroff is an American molecular biologist known for her research in life sciences and biotechnology, especially transposable elements or jumping genes. and plant stress response. In 2007, President George W. Bush awarded her the National Medal of Science, she is also a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the European Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Raymond J. St. Leger is an American mycologist, entomologist, molecular biologist and biotechnologist who currently holds the rank of Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Entomology at the University of Maryland, College Park.
Elsayed Elsayed Wagih PhD, DIC, CIDTT is an Egyptian professor of virology and biotechnology and vice President of the Arab Society for Biotechnology. He was born in Alexandria, Egypt. Wagih is well known for having invented Zymoblot, the fastest available microtechnique to detect gene expression and/or enzyme activity in any biological specimen as well as the ”Mirror Image in vivo electro-blotting technique” that detects virus particles or any foreign protein in any tissue. He also discovered two viruses reported under his name in the world data bank of viruses, the first was named "Peanut Chlorotic Ringspot Virus (PCRV)" and the second was called “Peanut Top Paralysis (PTPV)".
Lisa C. Klein is an American engineer. She is a distinguished professor of engineering at Rutgers University in New Jersey. In 1977, she became the first female faculty member in the Rutgers School of Engineering. She is the director of the graduate program in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.
Lily Young is a distinguished professor of environmental microbiology at Rutgers New Brunswick. She is also a member of the administrative council at Rutgers University. She is the provost of Rutgers New Brunswick. She is a member of the Biotechnology Center for Agriculture and the Environment and has her academic appointment in the Department of Environmental Sciences.
Karl Maramorosch was an Austrian-born American virologist, entomologist, and plant pathologist. A centenarian and polyglot, he conducted research on viruses, mycoplasmas, rickettsiae, and other micro-organisms; and their transmission to plants through insect vectors in many parts of the world. He is the co-author of a textbook on techniques in virology and is the author of numerous papers on the biology and ecology of plant viruses, their hosts, and vectors. He received the Wolf Prize in Agriculture in 1980 for his contribution to the study of crop pathogens.
Anwar Nasim is a Pakistani molecular biologist and geneticist who was the president of Pakistan Academy of Sciences from 2015–2017. He currently resides in Toronto, Canada.
William E. Bentley is the Robert E. Fischell Distinguished Professor of Engineering, founding Director of the Fischell Institute for Biomedical Devices, and currently the Director of the Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute in the A. James Clark School of Engineering at the University of Maryland. He was previously the Chair of the Fischell Department of Bioengineering, where he assisted in establishing the department and provided leadership that led to its nationally ranked status.
Jo Emily Handelsman is the Director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery at University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is also a Vilas Research Professor and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. Handelsman was appointed by 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 has been editor-in-chief of the academic journal DNA and Cell Biology and author of books on scientific education, most notably Scientific Teaching.
Bruce E. Rittmann is Regents' Professor of Environmental Engineering and Director of the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Biodesign Institute of Arizona State University. He was also elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2004 for pioneering the development of biofilm fundamentals and contributing to their widespread use in the cleanup of contaminated waters, soils, and ecosystems.
Professor Carol L. Prives FRS is the Da Costa Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University. She is known for her work in the characterisation of p53, an important tumor suppressor protein frequently mutated in cancer.
Gilda A. Barabino is the president of the Olin College of Engineering, where she is also a professor of biomedical and chemical engineering. Previously, she served as the dean of The Grove School of Engineering at the City College of New York, and as a professor in the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical Engineering and the CUNY School of Medicine. On March 4, 2021, she became the President-Elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Armen Trchounian was an Armenian biophysicist. D.Sc. in Biological sciences (1990) and professor (2002), Corresponding Member of NAS RA (2006) and Head of the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Biotechnology of Yerevan State University (2016–2020).
Geoffrey Michael Gadd is a British-Irish microbiologist and mycologist specializing in geomicrobiology, geomycology, and bioremediation. He is currently a professor at the University of Dundee, holding the Boyd Baxter Chair of Biology, and is head of the Geomicrobiology Group.
N. Louise Glass is the Fred E. Dickinson Chair of Wood Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley. She specialises in plant and microbial biology, particularly fungal cell biology and genetics
