About Chris
Dr. Chris Mason is a leading scientist in Genomics, Physiology, and Biophysics at Weill Cornell Medicine, where he is a full Professor and the Director of the WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction. He holds additional appointments in the Department of Neuroscience and at the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center. Chris is recognized for his unique “systems thinking” approach, which involves gathering and analyzing massive amounts of multi-omic data to understand life in extreme places. He first gained public attention for the PathoMap project, where he collected bacterial and viral DNA from the surfaces of the New York City subway system. This research expanded into the International MetaSUB Consortium, which studies microbial life in urban environments globally. His most ambitious work focuses on spaceflight genomics with NASA. Dr. Mason was a principal investigator for the groundbreaking NASA Twins Study, comparing the genetic changes in an astronaut who spent a year in space to his twin brother on Earth. His lab continues to design the genomics methods used aboard the International Space Station (ISS), creating “molecular portraits” of astronauts to prepare for long-term space travel. He is the author of the 2021 book, The Next 500 Years: Engineering Life to Reach New Worlds, which details his ten-phase, long-term plan for the survival of life, arguing that humanity has a moral duty to engineer human genetics to allow colonization of other planets.
