Bryce E. Nickels is a Professor of Genetics at Rutgers University and Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology. He directs a biomedical research laboratory and serve as project leader on one National Institutes of Health research grant. He conducts research on the mechanism of bacterial RNA synthesis. He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University in 2002. He is a co-author on more than 65 publications. He is a Pew Scholar (2008) and a Fellow in the American Academy of Microbiology (2018). Together with Richard H. Ebright and Justin Kinney, he co-founded Biosafety Now because he was concerned that the public did not have voice in decisions about research with potential pandemic pathogens.