Michael Purugganan

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Michael D. Purugganan (born Manila, Philippines in 1963) is a Filipino-American biologist and former journalist. He is the Silver Professor of Biology and the former Dean of Science^[1] of New York University (NYU).^[2] Purugganan is also an affiliated faculty member of NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD)^[3] and the NYU Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW), and since 2022, has been the director of 19 Washington Square North, the academic space of NYUAD in New York City. He was the former director of the NYU Center for Genomics and Systems Biology in New York (2010-2012) and Abu Dhabi (2012-2017).

Purugganan is a leading authority on plant molecular evolution and genomics.^[2] His major work has focused on the study of domestication and evolution of crop species (including Asian and African rice, date palms, barley, Brassica oleracea and maize).

In June 2013, he was elected to the board of trustees of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and served as the US representative to the Council of Scientists of the Human Frontier Science Program (2013-2017) and the Biological Sciences Advisory Committee for the US National Science Foundation (2014-2017). In 2018, he was appointed as co-chair of the Carnegie-Mellon University Presidential Advisory Board on Science, and in 2021 became the first Scientist-In-Residence at the Asian Institute of Management.