Karen E. Nelson

Dr. Karen Nelson is a Jamaican-born American microbiologist, who is the current president of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI).
She was educated at the University of the West Indies and earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University.
Dr. Nelson is noted for her research on Thermotoga maritima at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR) which resulted in the publication of the genome of that bacterium, and which demonstrated the existence of horizontal gene transfer. Dr. Nelson is also known for her work in human microbiome research. Her team published the first human microbiome study in 2006.
Dr. Nelson was appointed president of JCVI in 2012 after serving as the director of its Rockville Campus since 2010. Her current research focuses on interactions between human microbiomes and various diseases. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers in the field. Scientific American named Dr. Nelson as one of biotechnology's "leading lights" in its 2015 "The Worldview 100."

• Editor in Chief, Microbial Ecology
• Editor in Chief, Advances in Microbial Ecology
• Editorial Board Member, BMC Genomics
• Editorial Board Member, Giga Science
• Editorial Board Member, Central European Journal of Biology
• Board Member, Board on Life Sciences, National Academy of Sciences
• Member, Standing Committee on Support to the DoD's Programs to Counter Biological Threats, National Research Council

• ^ Committee Biographies National Research Council, retrieved March 27, 2015
• Board Members Board on Life Sciences, National Academy of Sciences, retrieved March 27, 2015

• Fellow, American Society for Microbiology

• Helmholtz International Fellow Award

• München, Helmholtz Zentrum. "Pioneering achievements in sequencing bacterial genomes: Karen Nelson receives Helmholtz International Fellow Award – Helmholtz Zentrum München – Helmholtz Zentrum München". www.helmholtz-muenchen.de. Retrieved 2016-02-12.