John Pham (scientist)

John W. Pham is an American molecular biologist and editor-in-chief of Cell, a prestigious scientific journal. He is an advocate for inclusion and diversity, and he represents LGBTQ and Asian communities.

Biography
John Pham was born in the U.S. a few weeks after his parents and older siblings arrived as refugees from Vietnam, and he was raised in Florida.

He earned a bachelor's degree (B.S.) in music and biochemistry from Bates College. He completed a Ph.D. at Northwestern University under advisor Erik Sontheimer. His research focused on understanding the mechanisms of RNA splicing and RNA interference. He presented his dissertation in 2006 which was entitled Building the Drosophila RNA-induced silencing complex.

After is PhD, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Career at Cell Press
He joined Cell Press in 2008 as a member of the editorial team of the journal Molecular Cell, of which he would become the editor-in-chief later in 2012. In 2018, Pham was appointed editor-in-chief of Cell, succeeding Emilie Marcus who had departed in February 2018.

Involvement with inclusion and diversity
John Pham is a member of the LGBT community. In June 2019, he was a speaker at an event organized by Elsevier Pride and 500 Queer Scientists at the WorldPride NYC 2019.

He has played a major role in making the journal Cell more inclusive. Since he started with Cell, he has helped shift the advisory board from roughly 20% women to 50% women. Additionally, the Cell reviewers have changed from 18% to 33% women during the time John Pahn has been editor-in-chief of the journal. According to his ideology, a more diverse science is better science, and including more women will lead to better ideas and talent.

Personal life
, Pham resides in Dorchester, Boston with his partner, and their two dogs. Among is hobbies, he likes to run, enjoys good beer, tending to his plants, cooking, and hanging out with his partner and pets.