MADELINE TOPF received her BA in Biology from Carleton College while captaining the varsity soccer team. As a research assistant in the Sonnenburg Lab at Stanford University, she fell in love with microbial evolution and bioinformatics.

MADELINE is getting her PhD in microbiology in the Pepperell Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is co-president of her graduate worker union, the Teaching Assistants' Association.