Michael Desai, PhD
Michael Desai is a recovering physicist and current evolutionary biologist. He joined the Rowland Institute as Director in 2026. His research focuses on population and quantitative genetics, and he is broadly interested in applying theoretical, computational, and experimental approaches to understanding molecular evolution in microbial and viral populations. Recently his work has focused on developing statistical, machine learning, and experimental methods to probe the structure of genotype-phenotype landscapes, and on analyzing the dynamics of the coevolutionary arms race between viral pathogens and our adaptive immune systems.
In addition to his research, Michael is deeply committed to undergraduate and graduate education. He leads Harvard’s integrated science curriculum for first-year undergraduates (Life Sciences 50), which introduces motivated freshmen to the natural sciences as a unified whole. He also serves as the Co-Director of the Systems, Synthetic, and Quantitative Biology PhD program. As Director of the Rowland Institute, he is excited to be part of a community that bridges disciplinary lines, embraces complex puzzles, and tackles many of the most important challenges in both the life and physical sciences.