PLoS Biology Academic Editor-in-Chief
The Academic Editor-in-Chief of PLoS Biology leads the Editorial Board and is a key community representative for the journal.
The ultimate responsibility for the PLoS Biology content and editorial decision-making lies with the team of professional editors. The professional editors frequently consult with Academic Editors, usually drawn from the Editorial Board, to make decisions on manuscripts, and every published manuscript has been seen and commented on by an Academic Editor.
For further information about how PLoS Biology is run see the Overview of the Editorial Process.
Biography for Jonathan A. Eisen
Jonathan A. Eisen, PhD is a Professor at the University of California, Davis, in Davis, California. His laboratory is in the UC Davis Genome Center, and he holds appointments in the Section of Evolution and Ecology and the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology. He also holds an Adjunct Appointment at the Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, CA.
Dr. Eisen's research focuses on the mechanisms that generate novelty in microorganisms, which he studies primarily through the use of genome sequencing and comparative genomics. He has been a pioneer in the development of the field of phylogenomics, which involves the integration of evolutionary reconstructions and genome sequence analysis. His current research focuses primarily on mutualistic interactions involving microbes and the use of genome sequencing to study microbes directly in the environment (a technique known as metagenomics).
Dr. Eisen earned his PhD in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, where he worked on the evolution of DNA repair processes. His undergraduate degree is in Biology from Harvard College. Before to moving to UC Davis in 2006, he was an Investigator at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) in Rockville, MD, and held an Adjunct Appointment in the Biology Department at Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Eisen has been on the Editorial Board of multiple journals including Genome Research, the Journal of Molecular Evolution, Molecular Biology and Evolution, Microbiology, Biology Direct, PLoS Computational Biology, and PLoS Biology. He has authored or coauthored more than 90 papers in publications including PLoS Biology, PLoS Genetics, Genome Biology, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, Nucleic Acids Research, Nature, Science, and Genetics.
Dr. Eisen believes teaching should be a fundamental component of all scientific research and has been heavily involved in science education reform throughout his career. He has won multiple awards for teaching including Stanford University's highest teaching award, the Walter J. Gores Award, in 1997. In addition, he is the coauthor of a textbook entitled "Evolution" published in June of 2007. He is an ardent supporter of open-access publishing and writes about it frequently on his "Tree of Life" blog.