Sam H. Sternberg, PhD, runs a research laboratory in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University, where he is an Associate Professor and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He received his B.A. in Biochemistry from Columbia University in 2007, graduating summa cum laude, and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014, where he worked with Nobel Laureate Dr. Jennifer Doudna. Sam's research focuses on CRISPR-Cas systems, RNA-guided enzymes, transposable elements, and genome engineering technologies. He is the recipient of the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the NSF CAREER Award, and the Amgen Young Investigator Award. Together with Jennifer Doudna, he also co-authored a popular science book about the discovery of CRISPR technology, titled A Crack in Creation, which The New York Review of Books called “required reading for every concerned citizen.”