Dr. Kieran C. O’Doherty, PhD., is professor in the department of psychology at the University of Guelph, where he directs the Discourse, Science, Publics research Group. His research focuses on the social and ethical implications of science and technology and public engagement on science and technology. He has published on such topics as data governance, vaccines, human tissue biobanks, the human microbiome, salmon genomics, and genetic testing. A particular emphasis of his research is on theory and methods of public deliberation, in which members of the public are involved in collectively developing recommendations for the governance of science & technology. Recent edited volumes include Psychological Studies of Science and Technology (2019) and The Sage Handbook of Applied Social Psychology (2019). He is editor of Theory & Psychology.

Dr. Sue Ishaq is an Associate Professor of Microbiomes, University of Maine; and founded MSE in 2020.  She received her doctorate in Animal, Nutrition and Food Science from the University of Vermont in 2015 where she focused on the rumen microbiology of the moose.  She held post-doctoral positions at Montana State University, and a research faculty position at the University of Oregon.  Over the years, her research has gone from wild animal gut microbiomes, to soils, to buildings, and back to the gut. Since 2019, her lab in Maine focuses on host-associated microbial communities in animals and humans, and in particular, how host and microbes interact in the gut and can be harnessed to reduce inflammation. She is also the early-career At Large member of the Board of Directors for the American Society for Microbiology, 2024- 2027.

Dr. Mallory Choudoir is an Assistant Professor and Soil Microbiome Extension Specialist at North Carolina State University, where she leads research focused on the ecology and evolution of soil microbial communities. Her work aims to translate cutting-edge microbiome science into practical solutions for sustainable agriculture. With a background in microbial ecology, Dr. Choudoir investigates how microbial communities respond to environmental change and management practices, with the goal of enhancing agroecosystem resilience and reducing reliance on chemical inputs. She is particularly interested in how soil health and microbial biodiversity contribute to long-term agricultural productivity and climate adaptation.

In addition to her research and extension work, Dr. Choudoir is a committed educator and science communicator. She is an active member of the Microbes and Social Equity (MSE) group, where she contributes to broader conversations on the intersection of microbial ecology, environmental justice, and stewardship.

Dr. Emma Allen-Vercoe is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada research Chair in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Guelph. She is a microbiologist who studies the microbiomes of humans and animals, including insects, and focuses on the gut environment.  

Dr. Allen-Vercoe's research focuses on the microbial ecology of the human gut, and she runs one of the few laboratories in the world equipped to culture the often highly fastidious and anaerobic microbes found in the human gut, both axenically and as part of defined, complex communities (using bioreactor technology). She was a contributor of many isolates to the Human Microbiome Project strain collection, and she participates in several ongoing efforts to standardize the measurement of the microbiome. Her research projects have been funded both nationally and internationally and include studies of the microbiome in Type 1 and 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and inflammatory bowel diseases, as well as more recent work to characterize the so-called VANISH (Volatile and/or Associated Negatively with Industrialized Societies of Humans) microbes of hunter-gatherer tribes in Amazonia. 

Rob is a Professor in the Faculty of Computer Science and a member of the Institute of Comparative Genomics at Dalhousie University. A student of the Ford Doolittle school of "I don't know what a species is, but it's definitely not that", Rob has been taking apart microbial genomes to uncover their gene-sharing secrets for a shockingly long time. Having successfully not solved the questions of microbial phylogenomics, he branched out to the worlds of microbial ecology and microbiome analysis and environmental DNA. Rob's role in MiSt is to agonize over the question of how to describe microbiomes in useful ways, and think about how individual "things" (species, clades, polyphyletic metabolically swappable non-taxa, etc) contribute to the greater whole.

Dr. Diego Silva is a Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at Sydney Health Ethicsand the University of Sydney School of Public Health. His research centres on public health ethics, particularly the application of political theory in the context of infectious diseases and health security, e.g., tuberculosis, COVID-19, antimicrobial resistance, etc. Diego adopts a mixed methods approach to his work, including the use of qualitative methods and conceptual analysis. He is a Member and the Past-Chair of the Public Health Ethics Consultative Group at the Public Health Agency of Canada and works with the World Health Organization on various public health ethics topics on an ad hoc basis. Diego has a BA and MA in philosophy and a PhD in public health from the University of Toronto (Canada) and was a post-doctoral Research Fellow in Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine at the Hannover Medical School (Germany).

Sarah Elton is an assistant professor and Eakin Chair in Critical Qualitative Health Research Methodology at the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health. She is Co-Lead of the Healthy Food Systems Within Planetary Limits Research Cluster at the university’s Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health & Sustainable Care and the Education Coordinator at the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research. She researches at the nexus of food systems, ecosystems, and human health including considering microbes and microbiomes from a social science perspective.

Dr. Andreas Heyland is a Professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Guelph and leads the Comparative Functional Genomics Laboratory. His research integrates functional genomics with microbiology and phycology to understand how aquatic organisms and microbial communities interact and respond to environmental change. His work focuses on lake and wastewater microbiomes, with particular emphasis on microalgae and algal community dynamics to link microbial diversity to freshwater ecosystem function, water quality, and early-warning indicators of challenges such as harmful algal blooms. In addition, his group advances microbiome-enabled water treatment and remediation in collaboration with industry partners, developing algae- and microalgae-informed strategies that improve monitoring and support more effective treatment solutions for aquatic systems.

Mikaela Beijbom is a Research Program Coordinator in the Discourse, Science, and Publics lab at the University of Guelph. She completed her MA in Applied Social Psychology in 2022, studying parent decision-making on behalf of school-aged children. As coordinator of the microbiome stewardship project, Mikaela's role includes research, writing, and administrative tasks. Her interests include social and ethical microbiome considerations, media and marketing representations of microbiomes, and discourse around microbiomes and health.

Dr. Zhongzhi Sun is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Computer Science at Dalhousie University, under the supervision of Prof. Robert Beiko. He obtained his PhD in Biochemistry with a specialization in Bioinformatics from the University of Ottawa, where his research focused on peptide-centric analyses of the human gut metaproteome. His current research interests lie in applying multi-omics data and bioinformatics approaches to investigate microbiome responses to host and environmental changes.

Grace is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Philosophy at McMaster University under the supervision of Prof. Claudia Emerson. On the MiSt project, she is working on the ethics of microbiome stewardship.

Her doctoral research focuses on the ethics of antimicrobial resistance, the philosophy of One Health, and global health ethics. Grace is also a Research Assistant at the Institute on Ethics & Policy for Innovation and holds a BSc (Hons) in Integrated Science from McMaster. 

Serena is a Master’s student in the Discourse, Science, and Publics lab under Dr. O'Doherty's supervision at the University of Guelph. She is focused on investigating social and ethical aspects of microbiome science, with a particular interest in public understandings and representations of health in relation to the microbiome.