Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Cultivarium

Dr. Ostrov is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Cultivarium, a nonprofit organization advancing open-source tools to expand research on novel microorganisms. She previously served as Director of Molecular Diagnostics at the Pandemic Response Lab in New York City, leading large-scale COVID-19 testing and genomic surveillance efforts. Nili earned her M.S. in Microbiology from Tel Aviv University and Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University. As a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, she pioneered genome-scale engineering in non-model microbes and contributed to the Genome Project-Write initiative. Nili is a dedicated advocate for open and accessible science.