Rate My Professor Dianne Newman

Dianne Newman is the Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology and Merkin Institute Professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with appointments in the Division of Biology and Biological Engineering and the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences. She earned a B.A. from Stanford University in 1993 and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1997. Newman began her career at Caltech in 2000 as Clare Booth Luce Assistant Professor, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2005 and Professor in 2006, assumed the Binder/Amgen Professorship in 2016, held the Davis Leadership Chair from 2017 to 2020, served as Executive Officer from 2017 to 2023, and became Merkin Institute Professor in 2024. She was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator from 2005 to 2016.

Newman's research centers on the bioenergetics and cell biology of metabolically diverse, genetically tractable bacteria, with emphasis on biofilm survival physiology relevant to human chronic infections and crop rhizospheres. Her laboratory investigates electron-transfer reactions fundamental to metabolism in anoxic environments, elucidating how microorganisms co-evolve with their surroundings, including microbe-mineral interactions and physiological strategies under slow-growth conditions. She launched the field of molecular geomicrobiology by discovering microbial mechanisms underlying geologic processes. Newman teaches Microbial Metabolic Diversity (ESE/Bi 168), covering photosynthesis, respiration, and genetic techniques for studying microbial electron transfer. Her contributions have been recognized with the Packard Fellowship (2002), Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigatorship (2005), Eli Lilly and Company-Elanco Research Award (2008), National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology (2016), and MacArthur Fellowship (2016); she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2021), and American Philosophical Society (2025). Key publications include 'Mechanistic study of a low-power bacterial maintenance state using high-throughput electrochemistry' (Cell, 2024), 'Bioenergetic suppression by redox-active metabolites promotes antibiotic tolerance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa' (PNAS, 2024), 'Drought drives elevated antibiotic resistance across soils' (Nature Microbiology, 2026), and 'Biofilms as more than the sum of their parts: lessons from developmental biology' (Current Opinion in Microbiology, 2024).