Emmitt R. Jolly is an Associate Professor with tenure in the Department of Biology with an appointment in the Center for Global Health and Disease at Case Western Reserve University. His research laboratory examines parasitic schistosome worms with a focus on characterizing and understanding transcriptional and translational control mechanisms during and after host invasion, and early development of the parasites to identify novel drug candidates for the treatment of schistosomiasis, and on developing molecular and genetics tools to exploit basic biology. As a part of this, the Jolly lab is defining the molecular modulators necessary for the developmental transition from infectious schistosome larvae, called cercariae, to the post-infection stage, schistosomula. Dr Jolly received a B.S. in Biology from Tuskegee University, where he was a Presidential Scholar, and a Ph.D in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, San Francisco under geneticist Ira Herskowitz. He also completed his postdoctoral work at UCSF with in molecular parasitology under James McKerrow. During his tenure at UCSF, he was a Ford Fellow, a UNCF/Merck Fellow, a Genentech Scholar and was awarded the UCSF Chancellors Martin Luther King Jr. Award. He is cofounder of the Association of Underrepresented Minority Fellows, a not-for-profit think-tank organization of biomedical scientists and his leadership has led to a Proclamation from the Governor of Alabama, and a leadership award from the California State Senate.