Sam Brown, Ph.D.

Georgia Institute of Technology

Samuel (Sam) Brown, Ph.D., is a microbiologist in the School of Biological Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). His Ph.D. (Cambridge, 2001) was in theoretical evolutionary biology. During his Ph.D. studies, he developed theory to understand the social lives of microbes, with a focus on collective behaviors (e.g., secreted factors and their control by quorum-sensing).

Following a theory postdoc in France, he did a wet-lab postdoc at UT Austin, focusing on pathogen behaviors, combining theory and data to unpick the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of a range of bugs. Following a junior faculty position at Oxford, he opened a wet lab in Edinburgh with a focus on the opportunistic pathogen and model social organism Pseudomonas aeruginosa. In 2015, his lab moved to Georgia Tech, where its scope was broadened to incorporate community ecological dynamics in polymicrobial “infection microbiomes” and the antibiotic resistance crisis. In addition to studying basic biological questions on pathogen dynamics, the lab explores the applied consequences of the work and seeks to leverage their findings to produce “evolution proof” means of pathogen control.

Website: https://brownlab.biology.gatech.edu