Xuejuan Tan received her B. S. degree in Food Science and Technology in 2002 and her Ph. D degree in Microbiology in 2009 from Huazhong Agricultural University, China. She worked as a postdoctoral research associate at the Harper Cancer Research Institute, University of Notre Dame, during 2012 – 2017. Then, she worked in preclinical drug development at Hsiri Therapeutics as a research scientist until she joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Oklahoma State University. She is currently working on multiple projects to explore mycobacterial pathogenesis and the host immunity.