About the Editors
Like the other Nature titles, Nature Microbiology has no external editorial board. Instead, all editorial decisions are made by a dedicated team of professional editors, with relevant research and editorial backgrounds.
Chief Editor: Emily White, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
Emily studied Microbiology for her undergraduate degree at the University of Manchester. She received a PhD in Microbiology, studying interactions between the mammalian gut microbiota and the helminth parasite Trichuris muris with Ian Roberts and Richard Grencis, University of Manchester. Emily joined the Nature Microbiology team in November 2016 and has been locum Chief Editor on two occasions in 2021 and 2023. Emily became Chief Editor at the journal in November 2023. Since 2021, she has been an Advisory Editor for npj Biofilms and Microbiomes. Emily is based in the London office.
orcid.org/0000-0002-2314-5718
Senior Editor: Kyle Frischkorn, PhD, Springer Nature, USA
Kyle studied Microbiology during his undergraduate degree at the University of Washington in Seattle. He went on to obtain his PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, where he studied interactions between marine microbes and their impact on geochemical cycles. He also conducted postdoctoral research on this topic at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, France. Kyle began his editorial career in 2019 at Nature Communications, handling biogeoscience. In 2021 he served as locum Senior Editor at Nature Geoscience. Kyle joined Nature Microbiology in 2022 and is based in the New York office.
orcid.org/000-0003-4844-8720
Senior Editor: François Mayer, PhD, Springer Nature, Germany
François studied Microbiology at the Technical University Braunschweig in Germany, and investigated biofilms of the pathogenic bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa during his Diploma thesis in the laboratory of Dieter Jahn. He then earned his PhD in Microbiology studying novel infection-associated genes in the human fungal pathogen Candida albicans in the laboratory of Bernhard Hube at the Hans-Knoell-Institute in Jena, Germany. Following a short postdoc in Bernhard Hube’s lab, he then moved to Vancouver, Canada, to perform postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Jim Kronstad at the Michael Smith Laboratories, University of British Columbia. There, his research focus was on virulence factor production by the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans, antifungal drug discovery, and fungal-bacterial interactions. François joined the Nature Microbiology team in September 2019. Since 2023, he has been an Advisory Editor for npj Antimicrobials and Resistance. François is based in the Heidelberg office.
orcid.org/0000-0002-6800-9429
Associate Editor: Julie Tai-Schmiedel, PhD, Springer Nature, Germany
Julie studied Biochemistry at the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen in Germany. She completed her Ph.D. studies in the lab of Noam Stern-Ginossar at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel. There, she addressed how Influenza A virus induces host shutoff and investigated the functions of long non-coding RNAs that are encoded by the human cytomegalovirus. Julie joined the Nature Microbiology team in September 2020 and is based in the Berlin office. Since 2023, she has been an Advisory Editor for npj Viruses.
julie.tai-schmiedel@nature.com
orcid.org/0000-0003-0302-4377
Associate Editor: Jess Thompson, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
Jess studied Microbiology and Immunology as part of her undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge, before completing a PhD in Cellular Microbiology with David Holden at Imperial College London. There, she investigated how Salmonella virulence factors affect intramacrophage survival and replication. Her first postdoc, with Karina Xavier at the Gulbenkian Institute of Science, Lisbon, Portugal, researched intra- and inter-bacterial signalling during E. coli gut colonisation and upon interaction with the gut microbiome. Jess next moved to the laboratory of Miguel Soares, to investigate mechanisms of disease tolerance, resistance and metabolic adaptation to bacterial sepsis as well as Salmonella, Citrobacter and Clostridium difficile infections, before joining the team at Nature Microbiology as an Associate Editor in August 2022. Jess is based in the London office.
jessica.thompson@springernature.com
orcid.org/0000-0002-5578-9833
Consulting Editor: Susan Jones, PhD, Springer Nature, UK
Susan studied Microbiology & Virology for her undergraduate degree at the University of Warwick. She received a PhD in Microbiology, studying quorum sensing in a plant pathogenic bacterium in George Salmond’s lab at the University of Warwick. After postdoctoral work at Imperial College, London investigating transcriptional mechanisms underlying stress responses in bacteria, she left the lab in 2003 to join the launch team of Nature Reviews Microbiology, becoming Chief Editor in 2008. She moved to join the PLOS Medicine team in 2009 where she was responsible for infectious disease, public health and molecular medicine and became Senior Research Editor in 2011. Susan joined Nature Biotechnology in 2012 where she spent eight years as Senior Editor, and was responsible for applied microbiology, microbiome technologies, microbial genomics and plant biotechnology among other areas. She joined Nature Microbiology as Chief Editor in March 2020. In 2022 she was appointed to a voluntary role as a Global assessor of small grants applications and event abstract submissions for the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine & Hygiene. Susan is based in the London office.
orcid.org/0000-0002-7801-9786
