Rob Knight

Rob Knight is the founding Director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego, where he serves as a Professor in the Departments of Pediatrics and Computer Science & Engineering. Previously, he was a Professor of Chemistry & Biochemistry and Computer Science at the BioFrontiers Institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and an HHMI Early Career Scientist. Knight is a Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology. In 2015, he received the Vilcek Prize in Creative Promise for Life Sciences. He authored "Follow Your Gut: The Enormous Impact of Tiny Microbes" (Simon & Schuster, 2015) and delivered a TED talk in 2014. His lab has developed key software tools and laboratory techniques that have advanced high-throughput microbiome science, including the QIIME pipeline and UniFrac. Knight is also a co-founder of several significant projects, including the Earth Microbiome Project and the American Gut Project. His research has linked microbial communities to health conditions such as obesity and inflammatory bowel disease, contributing to our understanding of microbes in diverse environments. He teaches the course "Gut Check: Exploring Your Microbiome."