Pardis Sabeti

Pardis Sabeti develops algorithms to detect the genetic signatures of microbial organisms and their adaption in humans. Her lab examines the genetic factors that drive disease susceptibility to Ebola and Lassa fever and investigates the genomes of microbes to help find cures for diseases, including Lassa virus, Ebola, malaria, Vibrio cholera and Mycobacterioum tuberculosis.

A computational geneticist at Harvard and the Broad Institute, Sabeti has devoted her career to harnessing genomics to transform outbreak detection and response. During the Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, her team in Sierra Leone sequenced the virus's genome in real time. She and her team have since tackled Zika and Lassa fever and are working on numerous projects to enhance global viral surveillance and equip lower-income countries with rapid, field-deployable diagnostic tools.

After completing her undergraduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sabeti attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship where she researched human genetic resistance to malaria. She then earned her medical degree from Harvard Medical School. She is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and was named a TIME magazine "Person of the Year" in 2014 for her work fighting Ebola.