Rebecca Wattam is a research associate professor. Her background focused heavily on infectious diseases. She received her joint Ph.D. in veterinary science and entomology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1992. Her interests include bacterial pathogens and comparative genomics. She is currently involved in the Bacterial and Viral Bioinformatics Research Center. She is funded on that project by NIAID, is part of the Pathogens Genomic Centers of Excellence funded by CDC, and is also part of the iSENTRY project funded by DARPA. She has collaborated with colleagues to publish sixteen publications since she joined the institute in 2019.