Nili Ostrov

Dr. Nili Ostrov is the Chief Scientific Officer of Cultivarium, a nonprofit creating open-source tools for life scientists to expand access to novel microorganisms. Previously, she was the Director of Molecular Diagnostics at Pandemic Response Lab, a high-throughput diagnostic and genome biosurveillance COVID-19 facility established for New York City. Nili received her MS in Microbiology from Tel-Aviv University and her PhD in Chemistry from Columbia University. As a postdoctoral fellow in Genetics at Harvard Medical School, she spearheaded construction of synthetic chromosomes and established genome-scale engineering methods to enable research in non-model microbes. Nili further led development of a technology roadmap for the Genome Project Write (GP-write). Her research interests span metabolic engineering, protein engineering, nanomaterials, and environmental microbiology. Nili is an avid science communicator passionate about making science more open and accessible.