I have been in the genomics field for over 30 years, developing an extensive expertise in microbial genomics, functional genomics, comparative genomics, and bioinformatics. I have led the genome sequencing and analysis of many organisms, starting with eukaryotic chromosomes then shifting towards bacterial pathogens. I was the lead author on the first published genomes of Neisseria meningitidis, Streptococcus pneumoniae, and Streptococcus agalactiae. In collaboration with the group of Dr. Rino Rappuoli (GlaxoSmithKline, former Chiron Vaccines and Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics), I pioneered the fields of reverse vaccinology and pangenomics. The former makes use of genomics to identify novel protein candidates for vaccine development. The latter is the characterization of the genome content of an entire species using multiple strains. I have conducted many studies of bacterial diversity and transcriptional profiling using RNA-seq, as well as functional genomics analyses to identify genes essential for virulence in streptococci using Tn-seq. I have also supervised the development of bioinformatics tools to compare closely related bacterial genomes and enhance transcriptomics analyses.