Dr. Joshua Fierer is an Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Pathology in Residence at the University of California San Diego. He obtained his Bachelor’s degree from Columbia College in 1959 and his MD from New York University School of Medicine in 1963. After medical school, he did a residency in Internal Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and spent two years in the US Public Health Service as an EIS Officer with the Communicable Diseases Center in Atlanta, GA. He started an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at the University of Pittsburg in Abraham I. Braude’s Laboratory and then moved with him to UCSD in 1969, where he finished his fellowship. Dr. Fierer was appointed to the faculty and has remained at UCSD ever since. He took a position at the Veterans Administration Medical Center when it opened in 1971 and was the Chief of the Infectious Diseases and the Director of Microbiology at the Veterans Administration Medical Center until 2020 and was Chief of Infectious Diseases at UCSD for 14 years. His research career has focused on host-pathogen relationships, and primarily worked on Salmonella and the fungus Coccidioides, making important discoveries in both areas. He is also a fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a fellow of AAAS, and a member of the Academy of Microbiology.