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.

Margaret E. Kosal is Professor (as of August 2025) of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her research uses theories and concepts from the social sciences, primarily international relations, to explore relationships among science, technology, and security and to explain how these phenomena impact geopolitics and how geopolitics affects innovation. She focuses on two, often intersecting, areas: understanding the politics of emerging technologies and reducing the threat of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). She holds appointments as affiliated faculty in the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Georgia Tech Institute for Matter and Systems (IMS). Formally trained as an experimental scientist, Kosal earned a doctoral degree in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) working on biomimetic and nano-structured functional materials.
Kosal has served as a Senior Advisor to the Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, as Science and Technology Advisor within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), and as an Associate to the National Intelligence Council (NIC). She earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Southern California. She is also the co-founder of a sensor company, where she led research and development of medical, biological, chemical sensors and explosives detection. In January 2017, Kosal was appointed the Editor-in-Chief of the Cambridge University Press journal, “Politics and the Life Sciences.’ Her honors include being elected an Honorary Lifetime Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is a champion of students as young scholars at the intersection of science, technology, and international affairs, and she is committed to bridging the academic-policy gap, as seen by her leadership on national and international advisory boards and committees.

Edward Kalkreuter started as an Assistant Professor in Chemistry & Biochemistry at Florida State University in 2024. He received his BS in Chemistry at Emory University and his PhD in Chemistry from North Carolina State University under Gavin Williams (engineering polyketide synthases and genetic biosensors). He then conducted his NIH postdoctoral fellowship under Ben Shen at Scripps Research, where he studied microbial natural product discovery, biosynthesis, and synthetic biology. His research group currently is focused on leveraging and developing synthetic biology techniques and strategies for the discovery of novel natural products and their chemistries.

Taylor is an accomplished scientist and engineer with over a decade of experience across academia and industry developing strategic research initiatives, managing collaborative projects, and driving technical project management. As the Director of Research for Northwestern University’s Center for Synthetic Biology (CSB), her responsibilities include working with CSB leadership, faculty, and staff to help grow the research capacity of the Center and provide strategic direction for new research endeavors and partnerships. She also contributes to long-term planning in support of the Center’s education, research, and outreach missions. Taylor holds a PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from Northwestern University where she worked in the lab of Danielle Tullman-Ercek. Her dissertation research focused on engineering bacterial microcompartments (MCPs) for the encapsulation of non-native metabolic pathways, notably developing a genomic integration platform to control cargo encapsulation in MCPs. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biochemical Engineering at Northeastern University.

Lauren received her B.S. in Chemistry from Wake Forest University in 2011, working in the laboratory of Patricia Dos Santos. Lauren earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Microbiology, and Molecular Biology from the Pennsylvania State University in 2017. She trained in the joint laboratory of Marty Bollinger, Jr. and Carsten Krebs, studying the mechanistic and functional diversity of non-heme diiron oxidases and oxygenases. Lauren did her postdoctoral training with Emily Balskus at Harvard University as a Merck fellow of the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. Her research focused on dietary nutrient metabolism by the human gut microbiota linked to cardiovascular disease. She started her independent research group in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington in January 2022. The goal of her research program is to uncover the biochemical and molecular basis for host-microbe interactions, microbial community dynamics, and microbial environmental adaptation. We use protein biochemistry, microbiology, and bioinformatics to discover, characterize, and engineer microbial pathways and enzymes for applications in biocatalysis, bioremediation, and biomedical applications.

Pavel Dvořák, Ph.D.
He is currently an associate professor at Masaryk University (MUNI), Brno, Czech Republic, and group leader at the Microbial Bioengineering Laboratory (MBL).

Pavel Dvořák is a molecular biologist by training. During his Ph.D. studies (completed in 2014), he worked in the protein engineering group of Jiri Damborsky (Loschmidt Laboratories) on the design of synthetic enzyme cascades for the degradation of halogenated anthropogenic pollutants in vitro and in heterologous bacterial hosts.

Pavel conducted his postdoctoral research (2015 – 2018) as a Marie S. Curie fellow in the laboratory of Víctor de Lorenzo at CNB-CSIC, Madrid, where he focused on microbial metabolic engineering and synthetic biology, working on the refactoring of Pseudomonas putida for the biotechnological processing of carbohydrates from lignocellulosic residues.

In 2019, Pavel established the MBL at MUNI, and since then, he has continued to push the boundaries of mesophilic and thermophilic environmental bacteria for biotechnology using tools of synthetic biology and metabolic engineering.

Pavel is involved in teaching, mentoring, science popularization, and local SynBio community building. He is one of the PIs of the successful Brno iGEM team, a member of the Bioengineering and Bioprocessing Division of the European Federation of Biotechnology, a member of the Early Career Committee of the International Metabolic Engineering Society (IMES), and an EUSynBioS Advisory Board member. He promotes engineering biology in the Czech Republic. He recently founded the web platform Czech SynBio Node, which aims to unite laboratories, companies, and other local partners interested in engineering biology.