George O’Toole, PhD, The Elmer R. Pfefferkorn, Ph.D. Professor of Microbiology & Immunology at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, has received the 2025 American Society for Microbiology (ASM) Award for Graduate Education.
For nearly four decades, ASM has offered a wide range of awards to recognize microbiologists for outstanding contributions to their field—whether it be in the areas of research, education, clinical laboratories, service, or scientific diversity. Each year, award recipients are chosen by a selection committee from a competitive, peer-nominated list of candidates.
Established in 1899, the American Society for Microbiology is one of the oldest and largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences. It is comprised of more than 32,000 scientists, educators and health professionals who are dedicated to promoting and advancing microbial sciences around the world.
“It’s incredibly humbling and gratifying to be recognized in this way,” says O’Toole, who will be one of 20 awardees recognized for their accomplishments at the 2025 ASM Microbe meeting to be held in June in Los Angeles, CA. “The ASM is a very impactful scientific society whose important work in science advocacy, journal publications, mentoring of junior scientists, and advancing microbiology really can’t be overstated.”
During his 25-year career at Dartmouth, O’Toole has mentored 29 PhD students in the O’Toole Laboratory, while teaching courses to graduate students and running workshops and journal clubs. He currently runs a training grant to help support graduate students in his program.
“One of the things I’ve enjoyed most about Dartmouth is how graduate student focused we are as a research enterprise,” says O’Toole. “Our students have done quite well in their careers.
“Winning this award aligns really nicely with the culture and the effort that a lot of our faculty here at Dartmouth have brought to mentoring graduate students and developing training programs to help prepare them to be independent scientists,” he says.
O’Toole and his collaborators at Dartmouth have been leaders in advancing the understanding of how bacteria transition from a free-swimming state to microbial communities known as biofilms. Their studies have shed light on the surface sensing ability of microbes and how single-species biofilm communities form on living (airway cells) and non-living (medical implant) surfaces.
His lab has published extensively on the antibiotic resistance of mixed communities of microbes, particularly those associated with chronic infections in the airways of persons with cystic fibrosis.
O’Toole’s administrative and mentoring responsibilities include serving as the Training Core co-director of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF)-funded Research Development Program (RDP) and principal investigator of a NIH-T32-funded training program. He is also the director of graduate studies for microbiology and immunology. He received Dartmouth’s Graduate Faculty Mentor Award in 2008.
O’Toole’s many honors include: the National Science Foundation Career Award, Dupont Young Investigator Award, and Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences; election as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology; and serving as editor-in-chief for the Journal of Bacteriology. He has also served as the co-director of the Microbial Diversity course at the Marine Biological Laboratory.
A member of the Geisel faculty since 1999, O’Toole received his BS degree from Cornell University and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, followed by post-doctoral research at Harvard Medical School as a Damon-Runyan and Hood Fellow.
