Jean-Michel Claverie is full professor of Genomics and Bioinformatics at the School of Medicine of Aix-Marseille University, director of the Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology, and head of the Structural and Genomic Information Laboratory, a unit of the French National Research Center (CNRS) that he founded in 1996. Claverie worked on a wide range of topics ranging from the mathematical modeling of ultracentrifugation experiments, microbial and human genetics, cellular immunology, and more recently microbial genomics.

He got his initial training both in biochemistry, computer science and theoretical particle physics at the University of Paris and combined his multidisciplinary education into a Doctorate (Dr. Sc.) on the subject of mathematical modeling of biological system.