Jayaraman Gowrishankar is an Indian medical microbiologist. He was born in 1956 at Chennai, India. Jayaraman Gowrishankar graduated in medicine (MBBS) from the Christian Medical College, Vellore (University of Madras) in 1979 and was recipient of the Gold Medal for best outgoing student of his batch. He pursued graduate studies in bacterial genetics under Jim Pittard at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He received his Ph.D in 1983, and returned to India to begin his independent research career as a Scientist and Group Leader at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad. In 2000, Gowrishankar moved to the CDFD, where he has been Director for the last six years and head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Genetics.

Dr. Gowrishankar is an elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy; Indian Academy of Sciences; National Academy of Sciences, India; and the International Molecular Biology Network-Asia Pacific (A-IMBN). He has been the recipient of Young Scientist awards of INSA(1986), CSIR(1987) and Association of Microbiologists of India (1991), BM Birla Prize (1991), Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1997), FICCI Award (1997), CSIR Technology prize (2000), New Millennium Medal of Indian Science Congress (2000) and BREAD Role Model Award (2000). He was awarded in 1991, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology, the highest science award in India, in the Biological sciences category. He was awarded in 2013, the Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour, for his contribution towards the field of science.