Dr. William Hsiao joined BCCDC Public Health Microbiology & Reference Laboratory in September 2011 as chief bioinformatician to lead the effort of applying microbial genomics and bioinformatics in public health diagnostic and reference laboratory. He completed his PhD at Simon Fraser University under Dr. Fiona Brinkman’s supervision and a post-doctoral fellowship in Dr. Claire Fraser’s laboratory at the Institute for Genome Sciences, University of Maryland School of Medicine. His current research focuses on developing bioinformatics applications and using next generation sequencing technologies to study microbial pathogens and microbial communities (microbiomes). He has participated in several genomics and metagenomics projects and is currently leading the effort to develop a bioinformatics platform to use whole genome sequencing to facilitate public health infectious disease outbreak investigations. This will be achieved by integrating data from genomic sequencing, clinical records, laboratory test results, and epidemiological investigations using semantic web technologies. Overall, his research aims to improve our understanding of the pathogens that make us sick and the microbiota that keep us healthy.