Benjamin Wolfe

• Postdoctoral Researcher, Systems Biology, Harvard University, 2011-2014
• Ph.D., Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 2010
• B.Sc., Cornell University, 2003

Ecology and evolution of microbial communities

Graduate Research Areas: Ecology, Behavior and Evolution and Genetics and Molecular Biology

Research in the Wolfe lab links ecological and evolutionary patterns in microbial communities with the molecular mechanisms that generate these patterns. Using tractable microbial communities from isolated from food systems, my lab has two broad research goals:

1. identify the molecular mechanisms that control the assembly and function of microbial communities
2. determine how microbial species evolve within multi-species communities

Projects in my lab integrate experimental evolution, metagenomics, comparative genomics/transcriptomics, genome engineering, and in situ community reconstructions. Our work will help develop principles of microbial community assembly that can guide the design and manipulation of microbial communities in agriculture, industry, medicine, and nature.