Michael McLaren
Bio
Updated 03/22/26Michael McLaren is a Senior Research Scientist in the Detection division at SecureBio, a biosecurity nonprofit based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is a quantitative biologist with expertise in evolutionary theory, population dynamics, and microbiome measurement methods. He earned a Ph.D. in Biology from Stanford University in 2016 under Marcus W. Feldman, and a B.A. in Mathematics and Logic, Information, and Computation from the University of Pennsylvania in 2009. From 2017 to 2022, he was a postdoctoral researcher with Ben Callahan at NC State University, focusing on quantitative methods for microbiome research. In early 2022, he joined Kevin Esvelt's Sculpting Evolution group at MIT as the scientific lead for the Nucleic Acid Observatory (NAO), a project developing metagenomics-based monitoring systems to detect novel pathogens and provide reliable early warning for catastrophic pandemics. The NAO project subsequently moved to SecureBio, where McLaren continues to lead quantitative research on pandemic detection. He has received funding from the Long-Term Future Fund to develop an early-warning system for future biological risks.
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Links
Updated 03/22/26- Personal Website
- https://mikemc.cc/
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