Dr. Madsen is Professor of Medicine at the University of Alberta and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Gastrointestinal Inflammation and Immunity Research (CEGIIR). After receiving her BSc (Hon) and MSc degrees in Biochemistry at the University of Manitoba, she completed a PhD degree at the University of Calgary in the area of gastrointestinal physiology. She did postdoctoral training in gastrointestinal inflammation and immunology at the University of Alberta. Dr. Madsen has received several awards in recognition of her excellence in research and teaching, including awards from the Canadian Society for Clinical Investigation, Canadian Association for Gastroenterology, Crohn’s Colitis Canada and Canadian Association for Medical Education. Her research program is funded by Alberta Innovates, Canadian Institutes for Health Research, and Alberta Health Services. The goal of her research program is to gain a mechanistic understanding of environmental and dietary influences on host-microbial interactions in order to design effective therapies to treat human disease based on manipulation of the gut microbiome. She is carrying out both clinical and basic research studies using dietary interventions and fecal microbial transplantation to treat inflammatory bowel disease and metabolic syndrome along with mechanistic studies to examine how the host responds to microbial manipulation.