Theresa Koehler

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Theresa Marie Koehler is an American microbiologist and the Herbert L. and Margaret W. DuPont Distinguished Professor in Biomedical Sciences, as well as the chair of the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at McGovern Medical School. She is known for her work on anthrax and was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2021. On July 1, 2024, she became President of the American Society for Microbiology for 2024–2025.

Education and training: Koehler earned her biology degree at Virginia Tech. She completed her PhD in microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, researching plasmid-related differences in capsule production by Bacillus anthracis and a fertility plasmid from Bacillus subtilis (natto). She did a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School.

Career: In 1991, Koehler joined the faculty at McGovern Medical School. Her research focuses on host-pathogen interactions, especially in the Bacillus cereus group. She is an internationally recognized expert on anthrax, and her lab was one of the CDC-licensed facilities to study the bacterium in the early 2000s. Koehler has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of Bacteriology and is an Associate Editor of PLOS Pathogens. She also chairs the NIH Review Group on Bacterial Pathogenesis.