John Wickiser, Ph.D

Ater graduating West Point in 1992, Dr. John served as a Military Intelligence Aviator (SIGINT), staff officer, and ROTC Assistant Professor while on active duty. After leaving uniformed service, Dr. John completed my doctorate and postdoctorate work at Yale University (microbial RNA forms of genetic control) and Rockefeller University (RNA-protein interactions in the brain), respectively. Dr. John then joined West Point faculty as an Army civilian where John was promoted from Assistant to Associate, and then Professor of Biochemistry before being selected to serve as the Associate Dean for Research (ADR). As the Director of the Life Science Program, Dr. John founded the Synthetic Biology research and education program which was based on the iGEM student competition. One of his teams was awarded the DTRA SynBio Award and many of their teams were sponsored by DTRA through the SARI (Service Academy Research Initiative) and focused on solving problems for the warfighter. As the ADR and as the Academy’s Technology Transfer lead (ORTA), Dr. John encouraged and facilitated student-centric research projects in support of DTRA programs that spanned the spectrum of academic disciplines including engineering, natural sciences, and the humanities and social sciences. They fostered collaborations between military and industry organizations to address COCOM requirements. In 2021 Dr. John left government service to work pandemic challenges full time. Dr. John joined Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) to found a program dedicated to technical workforce development so that everyone had equal access to the best pathogen identification tools for both natural and engineered sequences. Dr. John work with clinicians, public health scientists, and biosecurity professionals to help people and organizations shift from single-diseases tools to pan-pathogen detection and reporting systems. Over the past two years Dr. John have served as an advisor and Subject Matter Expert for DOD including participating in an assessment of sequencing technologies in cold weather operations at Arctic Edge, Fort Wainwright, AK in February 2024.