Blake Rasor

Assistant Professor, North Carolina State University

Blake Rasor received a B.S. in biology & microbiology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Then he earned a Ph.D. in chemical & biological engineering from Northwestern University, working with Prof. Mike Jewett to study and engineer metabolism in cell-free systems. Before joining NC State, Blake was an EMBO postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology, where he worked with Prof. Tobias Erb to study photosynthesis using components from algae and cyanobacteria. Blake joined the faculty of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at NC State University in 2025 as a part of the new biomanufacturing-focused cluster. His research combines systems and synthetic biology approaches to engineer biocatalysis platforms with a focus on cell-free systems, 1-carbon metabolism, and photosynthesis.