Joan Roughgarden received bachelor degrees in biology and philosophy from University of Rochester in 1968 and a Ph.D. in biology from Harvard University in 1971. She taught at Stanford University beginning in 1972, attaining the rank of Professor of Biology and Geophysics.

In 1992 Joan founded and directed the Earth Systems Program. In 1995 she received the Dinkelspiel Award for service to undergraduate education. In 2011 she retired and moved to the island of Kauai in Hawaii where she remains a Stanford professor (emerita). In 2012 she joined the University of Hawaii’s Institute of Marine Biology as Adjunct Professor and Research Scientist.

Joan has published more than 190 papers and 8 books, including Evolution’s Rainbow in 2004 that won the 2005 Stonewall Prize for nonfiction from the American Library Association. Her recent research pertains to the evolution of holobionts, which are composite organisms such as corals where the host contains a symbiotic microbial community called its microbiome.