Shiv Kale’s training and expertise are broadly in the fields of molecular and cellular biology, microbiology, protein biochemistry, and bioinformatics focused on the study of host-microbe interactions. Dr. Kale collaborated with NIMML in understanding the diversity of disease manifestation caused by the clinically relevant fungus Aspergillus fumigatus and the identification of novel virulence factors utilized by the fungus to facilitate pathogenesis as well as the characterization of host defense mechanisms, primarily those associated with NLRX1. His expertise in microbiology, functional genomics, and computational biology was used to create a software suite to generate potential threat indicators for unknown genes and organisms. This software suite is applicable towards clinical samples, where identification of known and putative microbial threats is of interest. He also works close with several computer scientists to both computationally and experimentally dissect the novel components of cellular signal transduction pathways associated with clinical diseases. Shiv has 25 publications and several patent applications focused on understanding effector biology of eukaryotic plant pathogens, and he invented the “double-barrel” gene gun for transient quantitative assessment of gene functions in planta. Shiv has over 10 years’ experience working with fungi and oomycetes, over 7 years’ experience working with mammalian cell models (primary and immortalized), and over 5 years’ experience with mouse models of invasive pulmonary aspergillosis and breeding/colony management. He has over 7 years of experience with bioinformatics, focused primarily on transcriptomics, and large-scale comparative genomics. He was a researcher at the Virginia Bioinformatics Institute. He now works as a scientist at The MITRE Corporation.