Microbiologist wins Georgia primary for U.S. House seat

From ScienceMag:

Only a handful of members of Congress have doctoral-level scientific training, and even fewer highlight those academic credentials on the campaign trail. But that’s what Jasmine Clark did in winning a Democratic primary election yesterday in Georgia—all but ensuring that, in January 2027, she will become the first Black woman with a science Ph.D. to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives.

“The majority of her ads showed her in a lab coat and described her as a scientist,” says Emory University microbiologist Eric Hunter, her former Ph.D. adviser. “That approach could have backfired, but instead it resonated with voters.”

Clark, 43, who earned her microbiology degree in 2013 from Emory, is no stranger to taking political risks. In June 2025, while serving her fourth, 2-year term as a member of the Georgia state legislature, she decided to challenge longtime U.S. Representative David Scott (D), a revered figure in his heavily Democratic metro Atlanta district. In announcing her candidacy, she promised to be “a voice for science and truth in the face of Republican disinformation.”

Along with a war chest that far exceeded Scott’s and a crowded field of newcomers, Clark’s campaign benefited from Scott’s death on 22 April at the age of 80. Yesterday, with Scott’s name still on the ballot, she garnered 56% of the vote against her five remaining opponents.

“She was a bright, smart woman who was excited about science,” recalls Hunter about Clark, who joined his lab in 2007 after doing a first-year rotation in the school’s microbiology department. Although she did well, Clark recalls, “she was upfront about not seeing herself pursuing a career as a researcher. Instead, she said she wanted to share her knowledge with others and become a health educator.” She’s done that since 2014 as an instructor at Emory’s nursing school, teaching anatomy and microbiology to students hoping to enter the program.

Her own political education began when she headed up the Atlanta chapter of the nationwide March for Science in April 2017 to protest the policies of the then–newly elected President Donald Trump. Drawing on the concentration of research institutions in and around Atlanta, Clark assumed a role that “propelled me into a whole new space,” she told The Emory Wheel, the university’s student newspaper. In November 2018, she defeated a Republican incumbent to win a seat in Georgia’s state legislature.

“I have a Ph.D. in microbiology, which makes me very different from my colleagues at the statehouse,” she told an Atlanta radio station shortly before this year’s primary election. “And I’ve been using my scientific background to fight for policies that make sense for Georgia.”

She hopes to do the same at a national level when she gets to Washington, D.C., she added. “What RFK Jr. [Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] has been doing is very concerning to me. So I’m running to protect our public health system.”

Although she must win the general election in November, the odds are heavily in her favor. Clark faces Republican Jonathan Chavez, who lost to Scott in 2024 by almost 45 percentage points. Failed Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris won the district by a similar margin in 2024, as did Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in 2022.

Her ability to influence national policy will be shaped by whether Democrats regain control of the House in November. But whatever the outcome of that election, Hunter thinks Clark is well-equipped to do battle with the Trump administration and congressional Republicans.

“This is a person who’s served in a Republican-dominated [Georgia] House and is well aware of what she’ll be getting into,” he notes. “Somebody has to be a voice of clarity and authority on science in Congress, and she’s quite dynamic.”

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