Kim D. Pruitt

Kim Dixon Pruitt (born 1961) is an American bioinformatician. She is chief of the information engineering branch at the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Pruitt led the development of the RefSeq gene database.

Education Pruitt began her doctoral research in 1983. Her mentor was Maureen Hanson. Pruitt completed a Ph.D. in genetics from Cornell University. Her 1990 dissertation was titled Structure and expression of the Petunia mitochondrial S-PCF locus and cytochrome oxidase subunit II genes. After seeing a Science interview of James M. Ostell at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) about bioinformatics, Pruitt began working as a postdoctoral fellow at the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM). While completing her research, Pruitt approached Ostell and asked if she could work for him part-time while she was there. As a result, the following year and half from spring 1997 until mid-1998 Pruitt basically had two postdoctoral fellowships.

In 2019, Pruitt became chief of the IEB. As chief, Pruitt is responsible for NCBI's collection, creation, analysis, organization, curation, and dissemination of data and analysis tools in the areas of molecular biology and genetics, as well as for the collection and management of bibliographic information. Pruitt leads NCBI's more than 500 highly skilled scientific and technical staff in the design, development, and maintenance of databases, information systems, and software tools, as well as operational management of data submissions, quality checks, and data access. Pruitt's appointment was lauded by NLM director Patricia Flatley Brennan and NCBI director James M. Ostell.

Personal life Pruitt is married and has two daughters.