Lawrence is an Assistant Professor in Duke University’s Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Department of Medicine, and Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy. From the fall of 2010 until 2013, he was a Junior Fellow at Harvard University’s Society of Fellows. There, he worked with Peter Turnbaugh on the human microbiome.
He received his PhD in Computational & Systems Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010 (where he trained with Eric Alm), and he completed his undergraduate studies in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University in May of 2005 (where he trained with Chris Wiggins).
His lab seeks to understand, predict, and manipulate how human microbiota behave over time. They are particularly interested in how these human-associated microbial communities resist and respond to perturbation.