Dr. Hazen is Distinguished Scientist in the Earth Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Interdepartmental Biology from Michigan State University and his Ph.D. in Microbial Ecology from Wake Forest University.  He is currently head of the Ecology Department and Center for Environmental Biotechnology and co-director of the Virtual Institute for Microbial Stress and Survival at Berkeley Lab.

Dr. Hazen was professor and chairman of biology and director of graduate studies at the University of Puerto Rico for eight years.  He is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and has authored more than 200 scientific publications, not including more than 800 abstracts and chapters in several books.  He has five patents that have been licensed by more than 50 companies and are being used worldwide.