Dr. Jiangchao Zhao is an associate professor in the Department of Animal Science at the University of Arkansas. Dr. Zhao’s research focuses on the roles that human and animal microbiome play in health and diseases. His group uses the cutting-edge multi-omics approaches to identify bacterial pathogens and probiotics, to study bacterial-bacterial and bacterial-host interactions and to examine the ecology and evolution of animal microbiomes. Dr. Zhao has published 70 peer-reviewed papers, several of which were published on high-impact journals such as PNAS, Current Biology, Microbiome and Gut Microbes with himself as the first or corresponding author. Dr. Zhao serves as an Associate Editor for two important journals in the field: Microbiome and Animal Microbiome. He also serves on the editorial board of two ASM journals: Applied and Environmental Microbiology and Journal of Clinical Microbiology. He has been invited to review over 100 manuscripts for 27 journals. Dr. Zhao has been invited 24 times to present his research at national and international conferences.