
Efrain Rodriguez-Ocasio
University of Wisconsin-Madison
EBRC Research Roadmapping WG Liaison
Efrain Rodriguez Ocasio is originally from Puerto Rico and graduated from the University of Puerto Rico-Mayagüez with a B.S. in Industrial Biotechnology. During his undergraduate studies, Efrain served as a trustee on the Governing Board of the University of Puerto Rico, which oversees the 11 campuses of Puerto Rico’s public University. He earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at Iowa State University, where he developed microbial platforms for plastic waste upcycling and earned the ISU Research Excellence Award. Efrain is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research integrates metabolic and process modeling to identify new production targets for the decarbonization of the chemical industry and synthetic biology for industrial strain development.