Dr. Jonathan A. Kropski, MD is a pulmonary/critical care physician-scientist who leads a translational science research program focused on disease mechanisms of pulmonary fibrosis and lung injury-repair. As a clinician, he directs the Interstitial Lung Disease Clinic at the Nashville VA Medical Center, and has an enduring interest in improving outcomes for patients with and at risk for pulmonary fibrosis. He is an internationally recognized expert in genetic risk for pulmonary fibrosis, mechanisms of lung epithelial dysfunction in the context of this syndrome, and the use of single-cell biology approaches to investigate complex human disease. A central focus on his work is enhancing early detection of interstitial lung disease and characterizing the mechanisms that are responsible for initiation of the disease process. Integrating human-sample based translational studies as well as transgenic animal and ex-vivo models, his laboratory identified a diversity of previously unrecognized cell types and states in the human lung during development and disease, and characterized key mechanisms that control adaptive versus pathologic repair in the distal lung epithelium.