Jack A Gilbert, PhD profile page

Professor Jack A Gilbert earned his PhD from Unilever and University of Nottingham, UK, in 2002 and received his postdoctoral training at Queens University, Canada. From 2005 to 2010, he was a senior scientist at Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK; and from 2010 to 2018, he was Group Leader for Microbial Ecology at Argonne National Laboratory, a Professor of Surgery, and Director of The Microbiome Center at University of Chicago. In 2019, he moved to University of California San Diego, where he is a professor in pediatrics and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, associate vice chancellor for Marine Science, and director of both the Microbiome and Metagenomics Center and the Center for Soil Health. Prof. Gilbert uses molecular analysis to test fundamental hypotheses in microbial ecology. He cofounded the Earth Microbiome Project and American Gut Project, and is the founding Editor in Chief of mSystems journal. He has authored more than 450 peer reviewed publications and book chapters on microbial ecology. In 2017, he co-authored “Dirt is Good”, a popular science guide to the microbiome and children’s health. Dr. Gilbert founded BiomeSense Inc. in 2018 to produce automated microbiome sensors. In 2021, he became the UCSD PI and Consortium Chair for the National Institute of Health’s $175M Nutrition for Precision Medicine program. In 2023, he became President of Applied Microbiology International and won the IFF Microbiome Science Prize, and in 2025, he was elected to the American Academy of Microbiology.