Dr Jizhong (Joe) Zhou is a George Lynn Cross Research Professor, and Director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics at University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK. He is internationally recognized for a number of ground-breaking discoveries and pioneering advances in water-related microbial ecology and genomic technologies, particularly in studying global microbiome diversity, distribution and dynamics of wastewater treatment plants, and the assembly mechanisms underlying the succession of groundwater microbial communities in responses to heavy metal contamination.

He is a top 0.1% global highly cited researcher by all three major complementary metrics based on Elsevier’s Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, and is among Reuters list of World’s top 1,000 climate scientists. He is an editor-in-chief for mLife, a senior editor for The ISME Journal, an associate editor for Microbiome, a former senior editor for mBio and a former editor for Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

He has received a number of prestigious awards, such as the 2022 Soil Science Research Award for recognizing outstanding research achievements in soil science from Soil Science Society of America (SSSA), the 2019 ASM Award for Environmental Research for recognizing an outstanding scientist with distinguished research achievements in environmental microbiology, The Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award for Biological and Environmental Research in 2014 from U.S Department of Energy, an R&D 100 Award in 2009 as one of 100 most innovative scientific and technological breakthroughs, and the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers in 2001 from the President of the United States.

He is a Fellow of International Water Association, the Ecological Society of America, the American Academy of Microbiology, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. More detailed information is available at https://www.ou.edu/ieg