Rate My Professor Kenneth Poss

Kenneth Poss is Professor of Cell and Regenerative Biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Director of Regenerative Biology at the Morgridge Institute for Research. He joined the university at the end of 2024. Poss earned a B.A. in Biology from Carleton College in 1992 and a Ph.D. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998, where he conducted research with Susumu Tonegawa. He completed postdoctoral research at the University of Utah with Mark Keating and at Boston Children’s Hospital.

From 2003 to 2024, Poss led a research program at Duke University, serving as James B. Duke Professor of Regenerative Biology and Head of the Duke Regeneration Center. His laboratory has focused on concepts and mechanisms of tissue regeneration using zebrafish models, including regeneration of the heart, fins, spinal cord, skin, scales, and kidney. Poss discovered heart regeneration in zebrafish, establishing it as a model for cardiac repair, and his work has identified key mechanisms of tissue regeneration, developed live imaging approaches, and discovered tissue regeneration enhancer elements. He is a Pew Scholar and an HHMI Early Career Scientist. Poss has received the Merit Award and Established Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, the Ruth and A. Morris Williams Faculty Research Prize, the Distinguished Faculty Award from Duke University Medical School, and the NHLBI Outstanding Investigator Award. He was founding President of the International Society for Regenerative Biology.