Dr. Robert Hettich is a distinguished research scientist and leader of the Bioanalytical Mass Spectrometry Group of the Biosciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and a joint faculty member in the Microbiology Department at the University of Tennessee. He has over 34 years of experience in biological mass spectrometry, with a particular focus on high performance mass spectrometry. His research interests involve the development and demonstration of advanced mass spectrometry technology for characterizing complex biological mixtures, such as microbial proteomes, and for examining higher order protein structures. He has authored more than 270 publications, and is active in mentoring graduate students, as well as teaching analytical technology and advanced biological mass spectrometry classes. He is an associate editor for Microbiome, a member of the editorial advisory boards of Mass Spectrometry Reviews, BMC Genomics, and Journal of Integrated Omics, and is an active review member on several NIH review study sections, in particular for NIH-GM and NIH-NCI-IMAT.