About the 2024 Colsoy Lecturer

Jo Handelsman is the director of the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID) and a Vilas Research Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor in the Department of Plant Pathology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She joined the faculty at UW-Madison in 1985 where she served for 25 years before moving to Yale University in 2010. From 2014 to 2017, she served as a science advisor to President Barack Obama in her role as Associate Director for Science in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. After leaving the White House, Handelsman returned to UW-Madison where she continues to work on national policy as well as direct WID and pursue her own research on the soil and human microbiomes. In 2021 Handelsman published A World Without Soil, a book that presents the soil erosion crisis and policy recommendations to avert it.

Handelsman is a renowned microbiologist whose research seeks to understand how microorganisms cooperate with and antagonize each other. She is known for pioneering the field of functional metagenomics. Handelsman has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Inventors and received the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring from President Obama in 2011.

ABOUT THE PROFESSOR SHARON COSLOY - EDWARD BLANKDISTINGUISHED SCIENTIST LECTURESHIP

Dr. Sharon Cosloy was a member of the City College biology faculty for 27 years and served as Chair of the Biology Department for six years. She was a beloved mentor, educator, wife and mother and a passionate investigator of life and science. The Professor Sharon Cosloy and Edward Blank Family Distinguished Scientist Lectureship is regarded as the preeminent scientific lecture on campus. The City College of New York is grateful to Edward Blank and his family for their generous support.