Professor, Stanford University, 1991 Associate Professor, Stanford University, 1986 Assistant Professor, Stanford University, 1978

John Boothroyd, Ph.D., is the Burt and Marion Avery Professor of Immunology (Emeritus) in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine. For over 40 years, his group has been focused on dissecting the pathogenesis of parasitic infections, most notably Toxoplasma gondii. In addition to his research, he has also been heavily committed to undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral training, including trainee professional development. Dr. Boothroyd received his undergraduate degree in Cell, Molecular, and Developmental Biology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, and his PhD in Molecular Biology from Edinburgh University in Scotland. He worked as a scientist in the Immunochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at Wellcome Research Laboratories, UK, before joining the Stanford faculty in 1982 as a member of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology. He was Department Chair from 1999-2002 and served as Senior Associate Dean for Research and Training in the School of Medicine from 2002-2005 and Associate Vice Provost for Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs for the University from 2018-2024. Dr. Boothroyd has received various awards including being named a Burroughs Wellcome Scholar in Molecular Parasitology in 1986 and an Ellison Medical Foundation Scholar in Global Infectious Diseases in 2002. In 2008 he received the Leuckart Medal from the German Society for Parasitology and in 2016 he was elected to membership in the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. All of these awards reflect the creativity and hard work of the many staff, students and post-docs who have worked with him, over 30 of whom are now in independent faculty positions. Dr. Boothroyd’s research interests have spanned from viruses such as bacteriophage T7 and Foot and Mouth Disease Virus through to protozoan parasites such as Trypanosoma brucei, the cause of African sleeping sickness, and Toxoplasma gondii, a serious pathogen in newborns and individuals who are immunocompromised. At the end of 2024, Dr. Boothroyd transitioned to an Emeritus role at Stanford in order to take up a new position with Schmidt Science Fellows (SSF), an international postdoc training program operated as a partnership between Schmidt Sciences and the Rhodes Trust. In addition to chairing SSF's Academic Council, Dr. Boothroyd is heavily involved in the training and on-going mentoring of the >175 exceptional Fellows supported by SSF.

Dr. Leonor García-Bayona is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University. Leonor grew up in Bogota, Colombia, where she completed her undergraduate studies in Chemical Engineering and Microbiology at the University of the Andes. She did her Ph.D. in Microbiology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, under the supervision of Dr. Michael Laub, studying the genetics and cell physiology of a new interbacterial antagonism system. She then became a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Dr. Laurie Comstock, first at Brigham and Women's Hospital/Harvard Medical School and later at the University of Chicago. In the Comstock lab, Leonor trained in intestinal anaerobe microbiology, advanced microscopy and microbiome computational analyses. The García-Bayona lab studies the role of mobile genes in the community interactions of the human intestinal microbiota, and evaluates how this knowledge could be harnessed for targeted therapeutic interventions.

Matthias Garten, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the department of Immunology and Microbiology and the department of Bioengineering. He is a membrane biophysicist who is driven by the question of how the malaria parasite interfaces with its host-red blood cell, how we can use the unique mechanisms of the parasite to treat malaria and to re-engineer cells for biomedical applications. He obtained a physics master's degree from the Dresden University of Technology, Germany with a thesis in the laboratory of Dr. Petra Schwille and his Ph.D. life sciences from the University Paris Diderot, France through his work in the lab of Dr. Patricia Bassereau (Insitut Curie) investigating electrical properties of lipid membranes and protein - membrane interactions using biomimetic model systems, giant liposomes and planar lipid membranes. In his post-doctoral work at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda in the laboratory of Dr. Joshua Zimmerberg, he used molecular, biophysical and quantitative approaches to research the malaria parasite. His work led to the discovery of structure-function relationships that govern the host cell – parasite interface, opening research avenues to understand how the parasite connects to and controls its host cell.

Dr. Maecker received a BS in Microbiology from Purdue University and a PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford University. He did postdoctoral work with Ronald and Shoshana Levy at Stanford, and was an Assistant Professor of Biology at Loyola University Chicago, as well as a Senior Scientist at BD Biosciences, San Jose, CA. He is currently a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, and Director of the Human Immune Monitoring Center, at Stanford University.

Edward S. Mocarski, Jr. Emeritus Professor of Microbiology and Immunology (2021 – present) Emory University Vaccine Center Emory University Emeritus Professor following 15 years as Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Microbiology & Immunology in the Emory Vaccine Center, Emory University. Previously Professor and Chair of Microbiology & Immunology at Stanford University between 1983 and 2006. Distinguished Fellow at MedImmune, LLC, a division of AstraZeneca in 2009 and 2010 where he directed new pipeline vaccine research. His research interest is in the biology and pathogenesis of cytomegalovirus (CMV), and his group has made key contributions to the identification of replication functions, latent reservoir in myelomonocytic progenitors, immunomodulatory functions, and cellular response to viral infection. Most recently, study of viral functions that modulate host cell intrinsic activation and death pathways has brought understanding of cell death pathways in host defense and development. Striking discoveries have emerged from this research in virus-encoded cell death suppressors, touching many facets of the host-pathogen interaction. He defined the role of ZBP1 as a specialized pathogen sensor triggering RIPK3 to execute virus-induced necroptosis. He elaborated the role of caspase-8 as a pathogen supersensor and the consequences of unleashed RIPK3-MLKL necroptosis in virus infection. He has brought to light the importance viral modulation of necrotic cell death that can eliminate infected cells during infection with herpesviruses and poxviruses.

Dr. Denise Monack, Ph.D., is the Martha Meier Weiland Professor of School of Medicine in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the School of Medicine at Stanford University. The primary focus of her research is to understand the tug-of-war between the immune system and bacterial pathogens during infections. She is particularly intrigued by host-adapted enteric pathogens that have evolved to persist within hosts for long periods of time and spread to new hosts. She has discovered specific immune responses that help the host tolerate high levels of pathogen, referred to as “superspreaders”. She studies pathogen-microbiota interactions in the gut and has discovered that specific commensal bacteria-derived metabolites help defend against bacteria that cause food poisoning. In addition, her laboratory studies how immune cells recognize pathogenic bacteria that are residing within them. Her lab discovered that two innate immune pathways are sequentially linked and that this 2-tiered response is a host gauge of the “danger” level before commitment to host cell death. She has received numerous prestigious awards in microbiology and immunology, including The Burroughs Wellcome Fund Recipient in Infectious Disease, Society of Leukocyte Biology G. J. Thorbecke Award, Stanford University Postdoc Association Mentor Award, Max Planck Sabbatical Award, Elected Chair of Division B, American Society of Microbiologist, and is an elected Fellow and Governor to the American Academy of Microbiology. She is Section Editor at PLoS Pathogens, Editor at Infection and Immunity. She is currently the Principle Investigator of the NIH Training Grant in Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford and Chair of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Antonio J. Pagán, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford School of Medicine. Antonio received his doctorate in Immunology from the University of Minnesota and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Washington and the University of Cambridge. His laboratory studies the regulation of immunity and pathogenesis in tuberculosis (TB). TB is characterized by the formation of multicellular aggregates of immune cells called granulomas. His lab leverages powerful genetics and imaging capabilities of genetically diverse fish models of TB, which capture key features of human TB granulomas, to address fundamental questions in mycobacterial pathogenesis and granuloma immunobiology.

Priscilla earned her PhD in Bio-organic Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Following postdoctoral training in viral immunology at Scripps Research, she started her independent career at Harvard Medical School, where her laboratory combined chemical and pharmacological approaches to address fundamental and translational problems in virology. She is currently Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Stanford University School of Medicine where she focuses on leading and mentoring a multidisciplinary group of scientists focused on discovery and validation of new antiviral targets; identifying new strategies to achieve broad-spectrum activity and to avoid antiviral resistance; and investigating the function of lipid membranes in RNA virus replication. She is a strong advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion in science.