Joseph Cotruvo, Jr. is a Professor of Chemistry at Penn State University. He graduated with an A.B. from Princeton University, received his Ph.D. with JoAnne Stubbe at MIT, did postdoctoral work with Chris Chang at UC Berkeley, and started his independent career in 2016. His laboratory studies how bacteria selectively acquire and utilize lanthanides, probes roles of transition metals in infectious disease, and develops biotechnologies for separation of valuable metals. His group’s work has been honored by several awards, including DOE Early Career and NSF CAREER awards, a Sloan Research Fellowship, the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, and most recently, he was named a Blavatnik National Awards Finalist.