Dr. Adam Martiny received his Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark. He is an expert in microbial ecology and evolution as well as microbe’s role in biogeochemical cycles in a variety of environmental settings. He has published over 100 scientific articles and is on the editorial boards of ISME Journal, Environmental Microbiology and AGU Global Biogeochemical Cycles. Dr. Jennifer Martiny received her B.S. in Ecology, Behavior, and Evolution at UC San Diego and her Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at Stanford University. Her research aims to uncover fundamental principles of the generation and maintenance of diversity in microbial communities. Dr. Martiny is a fellow of the Ecological Society of America and the American Academy of Microbiology. John C. Avise is a Distinguished Professor at the University of California at Irvine, and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society. His research utilizes molecular markers to study the ecology and evolution of wild animals on topics ranging from genetic parentage and mating behaviors to gene flow, hybridization, phylogeography, speciation, and phylogeny. He has published more than 340 scientific articles and 25 books on a wide variety of evolutionary genetic topics.