Rate My Professor Jay Lennon

Jay T. Lennon is a Professor of Biology in the Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, at Indiana University Bloomington, where he joined as Associate Professor in 2012 and was promoted to Professor in 2016. In 2026, he was named an IU Distinguished Professor for his outstanding scholarship and peer-recognized achievements. Prior to Indiana University, Lennon served as Associate Professor at Michigan State University from 2006 to 2012 and as Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Brown University from 2004 to 2006. He earned his Ph.D. from Dartmouth College in 2004, M.A. from the University of Kansas in 1999, and B.S. from the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in 1995. Lennon's research centers on the ecology and evolution of microbial communities, examining factors that generate and maintain microbial biodiversity and their implications for ecosystem functioning. His lab integrates molecular biology, simulation modeling, laboratory experiments, field surveys, and whole-ecosystem manipulations across diverse habitats. He is particularly recognized for pioneering work on microbial dormancy and its consequences for population dynamics and biodiversity persistence.

Lennon has authored influential publications, including "Microbial seed banks: the ecological and evolutionary implications of dormancy" (Nature Reviews Microbiology, 2011), "Fundamentals of microbial community resistance and resilience" (Frontiers in Microbiology, 2012), "Scaling laws predict global microbial diversity" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016), "Dormancy contributes to the maintenance of microbial diversity" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2010), and "Microbes without borders: uniting societies for climate action" (mBio, 2025). His contributions have advanced microbial ecology by applying integrative approaches from multicellular organism studies to microbes, estimating global microbial diversity at 1 trillion species and inspiring broader adoption of such methods. Lennon has garnered major honors, including the Humboldt Research Award (2023), Fellowship of the Ecological Society of America (2021), Fellowship of the American Academy of Microbiology (2019), Fellowship of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2018), Kavli Fellowship of the National Academy of Sciences (2012), and recognition as a Highly Cited Researcher. He has served as Associate Chair of the Department of Biology, on the governing boards of the Ecological Society of America and American Academy of Microbiology, and as Distinguished Lecturer for the American Society for Microbiology.