After an initial training in microbiology at the University of Reading, Professor Maiden’s graduate studies at the University of Cambridge pioneered the investigation of sugar transport proteins in Escherichia coli with sequence-based approaches. After a two-year Medical Research Council training Fellowship in Cambridge, he began his independent research career at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control, where he was a group leader for nine years. Here he established a group focusing on the molecular and population biology of Neisseria meningitidis and its implications for vaccination. In 1997, after a years sabbatical in Berlin as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, he moved to a Welcome Trust Senior Fellowship at the University of Oxford, expanding the population and evolutionary aspects of his work. He was appointed Professor of Molecular Epidemiology at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College in 2004. Prof. Maiden is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the American Academy of Microbiology, the Royal College of Pathologists, and the Royal Society of Biology. He is the Microbiology Society Marjory Stephenson Prize Lecturer for 2020. At present his research group combines evolutionary, biochemical, and population genomic techniques to investigate a range of bacterial pathogens. He retains a strong commitment to developing public health applications on the basis of current research.