Rodrigo Ledesma-Amaro is a Professor at Imperial College London, where he leads a research group working on Engineering Biology and sustainability. He is the director of the Bezos Centre for Sustainable Proteins and the Microbial Food Hub. His research focuses on the use of microorganisms to convert renewable feedstocks into valuable products (such as food ingredients). He has published over 200 articles, most on topics related to microbial bioproduction (precision, biomass and traditional fermentation).
Rodrigo obtained his PhD at the University of Salamanca (Spain). Before joining Imperial, he carried out his postdoctoral research at the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE, France). He has been a visiting researcher at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) and AIST (Japan).

I am a metabolic engineer and systems biologist with research interests primarily focused on finding/developing novel biological pathways for waste upcycling. My group does “full stack” metabolic engineering, from in silico modelling and design through to bench-scale fermentation to evaluate scalability. I am also the co-founder of Phycus Biotechnologies, which makes bio-based glycolic acid using a novel, sustainable fermentation process.

Dr. Alberto J. Donayre-Torres is a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) in Lima, Peru. He holds a Ph.D. in Plant Genetics and Biotechnology from CINVESTAV-IPN, Mexico (2009), and completed postdoctoral training at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and Colorado State University (USA), where he spent five years advancing synthetic biology platforms for programmable biological systems. His research sits at the convergence of synthetic biology, advancing biomaterials using bioconjugation engineering (ACS Omega, 2025). He leads projects developing open-source tools for DNA assembly (pyBrick-DNA, J. Comp. Biol., 2023) and develops international collaboration on predictive biomaterial modeling AI-assisted. Dr. Donayre has supervised undergraduate and graduate research in recombinant protein synthesis, hydrogel functionalization, and bioconjugation — and actively contributes to the global synthetic biology community as co-organizer of international congresses and developer of open bioengineering platforms.

Joy Y. Zhang is a Professor of Sociology and Founding Director of the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice (GSEJ) at the University of Kent. Her research examines evolving science–society dynamics and their implications for the global ethical governance of emerging life sciences. Conceptually, her work advances the theorisation of cosmopolitanisation, decolonisation, commoning, epistemic justice, and subaltern politics. Empirically, her research focuses on four major scientific powers—China, India, the UK, and the US. She has studied the governance and science diplomacy of emerging life sciences—including stem cells, synthetic biology, genome editing, and experimental therapies—alongside climate politics, food movements, and environmental engineering. She currently leads three cutting-edge social research programmes on engineering biology and its applications in critical minerals, biomedicine, and agriculture, with the aim of informing social and policy deliberation in the UK and internationally. She is the author of three academic books and publishes widely in high-impact journals across the natural and social sciences. She is frequently interviewed by global media and advises leading research and policy institutions in Europe and Asia.

My group focuses on using synthetic control systems to re-engineer plants, filamentous fungi, and viruses. I am passionate about fighting global hunger and malnutrition. My major hobbies are cooking, making art, and reading. Science fiction is my favorite genre and I love that my job gives me the opportunity to bring some of the things I have read about closer to reality.

Dr. Yousong Ding received his B.S. in Applied Chemistry from Peking University in 2000, his M.S. in Chemistry (Advisor: Prof. Liangcheng Du) from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2004, and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Michigan–Ann Arbor in 2010, where he trained under Professor David Sherman. He subsequently completed postdoctoral research with Professor Frances Arnold at Caltech. In 2012, Dr. Ding returned to Michigan to join Pfizer Inc. (Kalamazoo, MI) before beginning his independent academic career at the University of Florida in July 2013. He is currently a Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at UF. Dr. Ding’s research group integrates synthetic biology, medicinal chemistry, microbiology, molecular biology, and microbiome engineering to discover and develop bioactive natural products that address current and emerging medical challenges. At UF, he has published over 60 peer-reviewed papers and filed more than 20 invention disclosures. He is also a frequent reviewer for funding agencies including the NIH, NSF, and others.

Cresten B. Mansfeldt is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, where he leads research at the intersection of synthetic biology, environmental microbiology, and wastewater surveillance and management. His work focuses on tracking and mitigating emerging contaminants, including synthetic biology products, within urban water systems. Prof. Mansfeldt has published extensively on microbial ecology, biotechnological risk, and post-fire water impacts, and actively bridges academic, regulatory, and community sectors to advance environmental resilience.

Vaughn Cooper, Ph.D. is an evolutionary biologist and microbiologist. He is currently Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, and Computational and Systems Biology, at the University of Pittsburgh, School of Medicine. He co-founded and until recently was Director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine (CEBaM), which works to catalyze research and education at the interface of these disciplines. He’s also a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, an elected Board member of the American Society of Microbiology (ASM), and is President-Elect of ASM in 2025-6. The Cooper laboratory studies how potential pathogens evolve to adapt to new hosts and environments, including by forming biofilm or gaining antimicrobial resistance. Recently, Dr. Cooper joined a team of scientists considering the potential risks of mirror life and is a board member of the Mirror Biology Dialogue Fund. We are proud to have founded EvolvingSTEM (http://evolvingstem.org), a comprehensive educational program that provides authentic classroom research experiences for thousands of middle and high school students in which they conduct a microbiology experiment that demonstrates evolution in action. The major goal of EvolvingSTEM is to help students see themselves as scientists and join the STEM workforce.

Dr. Cooper is also a co-founder and scientific advisor of SeqCoast Genomics, LLC and Middle Author Bioinformatics, LLC.

I am currently an Associate Research Professional in the School for Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment (SSEBE) at Arizona State University, based on the Polytechnic campus. I work at the Arizona Center for Algae Technology and Innovation (AzCATI), where I contribute to applied research in algal biotechnology and sustainable biomanufacturing.

With a background in Biotechnology and formal training in biochemical engineering, I specialize in bacterial metabolic and protein engineering, focusing on both photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic bacterial systems. Currently, I am collaborating with HelioBioSys Inc. (CA, USA) on the development of bioprocesses for the production of bio-based sunscreen components derived from cyanobacteria. This work spans the entire value chain—from scale-up cultivation to downstream process optimization—at a pilot scale of over 1,000 liters. We are now progressing toward industrial-scale trials at volumes of 12,000–15,000 liters, with the goal of enabling continuous production and biomass harvesting.

Beyond research and teaching, I enjoy creative and outdoor pursuits including music (particularly singing), hiking, and wildlife photography.

Neda Bagheri earned her doctorate in Electrical Engineering from the University of California in Santa Barbara. Her focus on control theory and dynamics piqued her interest in biology. After completing a postdoc in Biological Engineering at MIT, she joined the Chemical & Biological Engineering faculty at Northwestern University where she founded the Modeling Dynamic Life Systems (MoDyLS) Lab. In 2019, she was recruited to both the University of Washington (where she holds a joint position in Biology and Chemical Engineering) and the Allen Institute for Cell Science. In recognition for her research accomplishments and vision, Bagheri was awarded a National Science Foundation CAREER Award (2017), a Distinguished Investigator by the Washington Research Foundation (2019), and a Senior Moulton Medal (2020). She has also been honored as a keynote speaker for both national and international conferences. She serves on multiple scientific advisory and editorial boards, guiding the frontier of multidisciplinary research.

Dr. Erica Marie Hartmann is an environmental microbiologist interested in the interaction between anthropogenic chemicals and microorganisms, as well as bio-inspired mechanisms for
controlling microbial communities. Her career began at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She then moved to Arizona State University where she was the first graduate of the interdisciplinary Biological Design PhD program. She had two postdoctoral positions, the first, supported by a Fulbright, at the Commission for Atomic Energy in France. She began leading studies on antimicrobial chemicals and microbes found in indoor dust during her second postdoc at the Biology and the Built Environment Center at the University of Oregon. She is currently an associate professor at Northwestern University in the department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with affiliations in Pulmonary Medicine and the Center for Synthetic Biology. She was awarded an NSF CAREER to support her work on antimicrobial textiles and is leading an investigation of the respiratory tract microbiome in the NIH-funded Successful Clinical Response In Pneumonia Therapy (SCRIPT) Systems Biology Center. She is further designing new antimicrobial strategies based on bacteriophages.