Ali Shilatifard is a biochemist and molecular biologist, Robert Francis Furchgott Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, and Director of the Simpson Querrey Institute for Epigenetics at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He has served as a member of the Senior Editorial Board for the journal Science, also serving as the journal’s founding Deputy Editor and the first Academic Editor for the publications open access journal, Science Advances, between 2014 and 2023. During his tenure as the editor of Science Advances, the journal oversaw 400 deputy and associate editors managing more than 22,000 annual submissions and 2,000 annual publications. Dr. Shilatifard has served on the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of Keystone Symposia, Max Planck Society, and Genentech and is a member of the jury for the BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Awards in Biology and Biomedicine. Research in Shilatifard’s lab focuses on the cause of childhood leukemia through chromosomal translocations, the role of ELL in this process, and the discovery of the Super Elongation Complex as a central complex linking MLL translocations into a diverse number of genes to leukemic pathogenesis. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and elected member of American Academy of Arts & Sciences (AAA&S).