Director, Secondary Metabolites Program Head
Dr. Mouncey joined the DOE Joint Genome Institute in 2017 as the fourth Director in its 27-year history. He has a wealth of managerial experience from almost 20 years in the Industrial Biotechnology private sector, as well as research expertise in secondary metabolites and synthetic biology. Dr. Mouncey has a long-standing interest in microbial genetics that started with his education and carried forward into his roles as a senior research scientist at Roche Vitamins, Inc. in New Jersey and DSM Nutritional Products in Switzerland, and as Bioengineering and Bioprocessing R&D Director and Leader at Dow AgroSciences in Indianapolis. During his time in industry, Dr. Mouncey directed R&D teams that focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of novel production organisms and fermentation processes for vitamins, insecticides, fungicides, platform chemicals, cosmetics and new crop traits. Dr. Mouncey has successfully built integrated and highly effective multi-disciplinary teams, and today, focuses on continuing to build and position JGI as a leading integrative genome science user facility.
In addition to serving as JGI Director, Dr. Mouncey leads his own science group at JGI focused on secondary metabolites. He is also on the Leadership Team of the National Microbiome Data Collaborative and served as President of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology in 2022-2023.
Commentary
In a Berkeley Lab expert interview, Director Nigel Mouncey describes how the JGI supports the world's scientists, providing technologies, capabilities at a scale and a complexity that would be very hard for an individual institution to be able to support.
In the July-September 2025 edition of SIMB News, a structured review of the NSCEB’s core proposals and examination of actionable pathways for implementation across government, industry, and academia.
Nigel Mouncey is the Secondary Metabolites Program head as well as our JGI Director. Click to learn more about the program's areas of focus, major initiatives and more.
