Benjamin Wolfe
Research/Areas of Interest
Ecology and evolution of microbial communities
Education
- PhD, Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States, 2010
- MSc, Botany, University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada, 2005
- BS, Natural Resources/Plant Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, United States, 2003
Biography
Research in the Wolfe 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. Most of our research projects focus on food microbiomes, including fermented foods such as cheese, sourdough, and kimchi. Projects in my lab integrate experimental evolution, metagenomics, comparative genomics/transcriptomics, genome engineering, and in situ community reconstructions. Our work seeks to develop microbial community design principles that can guide the management of microbial communities in agriculture, industry, medicine, and nature.