Profiles

  • Otto Cordero

    Otto X. Cordero received a B.S. in computer and electrical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Ecuador, an M.Sc. in artificial intelligence from Utrecht University, and a Ph.D. in theoretical biology, also from Utrecht University. In 2014 Cordero received the ERC Starting grant in Europe and in 2015 he moved to MIT, where he has since been a member of the faculty. Cordero is a past Sloan Fellow in Ocean Sciences and recipient of the Simons Early Career Award in Marine Microbial Ecology. In 2017, Cordero co-founded PriME, a new Simons Collaboration that brings together physicists, biologists and engineers to decipher the rules that govern the assembly and functioning of marine microbial ecosystems.

  • Maobing Tu

    Dr Maobing Tu is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. He received his PhD degree in Forestry Bioenergy at the University of British Columbia (2007). Dr. Tu is a recipient of Industrial R&D Fellowship from Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and an NSF CAREER award in 2013. His research is centered on the development of cost-effective processes for producing biofuels and chemicals from renewable resources and waste. Specifically, he focuses on the interface between biomass processing chemistry and biochemical engineering in the production of fuels, chemicals and biomaterials. He has published more than 60 papers and received funding from NSF, DOE and EPA.

  • Jonathan Conway

    Dr. Jonathan Conway earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University under the guidance of Dr. Robert Kelly, focusing on lignocellulose degradation by extremely thermophilic bacteria. After completing his Ph.D., he trained as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill in Dr. Jeff Dangl’s lab, where he worked on engineering the plant root microbiome.

    In 2021, Dr. Conway established his independent lab in the Chemical & Biological Engineering department at Princeton University. He is also an associated faculty member of the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute, the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. The Conway lab focuses on genetically engineering non-model bacteria at plant-microbe interfaces. By mechanistically defining and engineering plant-microbe interactions, the lab aims to develop technologies for the bio-agriculture, bio-energy, and bio-chemical industries.

  • Marie Migaud

    I am a French-trained Chemist/Chemical Engineer with a PhD in organic synthesis from Michigan State University, postdoctoral training at the University of Bath and Oxford. My first independent academic position was at Queen’s University Belfast (Chemistry) in 2000. I was appointed first in faculty of science and engineering, then requested a joint appointment with the Center for Cell Biology and Cancer Research, and ultimately moved to the School of Pharmacy to fully exploit the collaborative network that my moving within the institution had allowed me to create. In 2016, I left my permanent UK academic position to join the Mitchell Cancer Institute at the University of South Alabama, after a sabbatical year in the department of Biochemistry at the Carver College of Medicine in Iowa. I seek to accelerate translational research programs through basic research in chemical biology and synthetic chemistry.
    More specifically, I pursue chemical research on canonical and non-canonical nucleotides and dinucleotides in the context of cell bioenergetics and signaling. I direct biology-focused research projects supported by bespoke organic synthesis and knowledge-based metabolomics and RNA/DNAomics research. My laboratory’s activities focus on synthesizing nucleosidic isotopologues, nucleotide-derived cofactors, and catabolites and develop analytical platforms that help unravel their role in diseases linked to genomic and metabolic mitochondrial dysfunction. Key to our research efforts are novel synthetic methodologies of isotopically labeled and modified nucleos/tides using mechanochemistry to allow atom-efficient syntheses.

  • Carolyn Chapman

    Carolyn Riley Chapman, PhD MS, joined the Multi-Regional Clinical Trials Center of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard (MRCT Center) in October 2023 (mrctcenter.org). She is a Member of the Faculty of the Department of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Lead Investigator in the Division of Global Health Equity (DGHE), Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Her work involves collaboration with diverse stakeholders to identify and address challenges in the research and development of genetic technologies and precision medicine, including cell and gene therapies. Since April 2023, Dr. Chapman serves as Co-Chair of the ELSI-Dedicated Genome Engineering Workgroup at the Center for Synthetic Regulatory Genomics (SyRGe), led by Dr. Jef Boeke, the Sol and Judith Bergstein Director of the Institute of Systems Genetics and Professor, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Prior to joining the MRCT Center, Carolyn worked at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in various roles. Immediately before joining the MRCT Center, she was Faculty in the Center for Human Genetics and Genomics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine with a primary appointment as Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health (Division of Medical Ethics). In the past, Carolyn has worked as an Associate/Lecturer and as Interim Associate Director for the Columbia Bioethics program; as a business strategy management consultant in the biopharmaceuticals industry at L.E.K. Consulting; at a start-up biopharmaceutical company, Aton Pharma; and as a freelance science/medical writer. Carolyn graduated summa cum laude from Dartmouth College with a BA in Biology. She has a PhD in Genetics from Harvard University and an MS in Bioethics from Columbia University. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a Graduate Certificate in Survey Research at UConn’s School of Public Policy.

  • Javin Oza

    Engineering of cell-free systems, proteins & enzymes, and adopting bioengineering to the university classroom

  • Julietta Sheng

    Julietta Sheng is a Science Policy postdoctoral scholar at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium. Prior to EBRC, she was a Junior Fellow at Colorado State University in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital – Boston and partnered with bioengineers, clinicians, and academics to enhance evidence-based research, identify scientific challenges, and develop creative solutions. She recently earned her PhD in Biomedical Sciences – Neuroscience from Colorado State University with a focus on sex differences in the brain and body that lead to neuropsychiatric disorders. Outside of work, Julietta likes to play pickleball, read psychological thrillers, and go on long walks with her puppos.

  • Neil Dalvie

    Neil Dalvie did his PhD in Chemical Engineering at MIT, studying therapeutic protein manufacturing. Now, he is a Schmidt Science Fellow in the Synthetic Biology Hive at Harvard Medical School. Neil researches large-scale bioprocessing for mineral processing and is interested in the ethics and regulation of environmental bioengineering.

  • Cameron Roots

    Cameron is a recent graduate and postdoctoral fellow in the Barrick Lab at the University of Texas at Austin. He completed his B.S. in biochemistry and in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at the University of Washington. Afterwards, he completed a postbactorial study at the National Institutes of Health as an IRTA fellow. His current research is at the intersection of synthetic and evolutionary biology, exploring how engineered systems are prone to mutation and developing tools to help researchers keep theirs stable. His prior policy activities include institutional policy initiatives within the UT Austin Interdisciplinary Life Sciences programs; independent study and programming as a Graduate Archer Fellow; and as an intern on biomanufacturing, biosecurity, and AIxBio federal policy.

  • Efrain Rodriguez-Ocasio

    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.

  • Ross Klauer

    Ross Klauer is a PhD candidate in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in Chemical Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology. Ross is co-advised by Dr. Mark Blenner and Dr. Kevin Solomon. Ross’ research focuses on elucidating the polyethylene deconstruction pathway in the digestive system of plastic-eating yellow mealworms. He is working to identify and engineer enzymes for polyethylene deconstruction. Outside of lab, Ross enjoys playing soccer and is a competitive cornhole player.

  • Rabia Yazicigil

    Rabia Yazicigil is an Assistant Professor of ECE Department at Boston University. She was a Postdoctoral Associate at MIT and received her Ph.D. degree from Columbia University in 2016. Her research focuses on the development of Cyber-Secure Biological Systems, leveraging living sensors constructed from engineered biological entities seamlessly integrated with custom-designed semiconductor chips. This unique synergy harnesses the advantages of biology while incorporating the reliability and communication infrastructure of electronics, offering a unique solution to societal challenges in healthcare, environmental monitoring, and sustainable biomanufacturing. She has received numerous awards, including the NSF CAREER Award (2024), Early Career Excellence in Research Award for the Boston University College of Engineering (2024), the Catalyst Foundation Award (2021), Boston University ENG Dean Catalyst Award (2021), and “Electrical Engineering Collaborative Research Award” for her Ph.D. research (2016). She was selected as a member of the 2024 National Academy of Engineering (NAE) US Frontiers of Engineering (USFOE) cohort.

  • Reza Zadegan

  • R. Clay Wright

    Clay Wright is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. His lab focuses on understanding and engineering chemical signaling pathways from plants and fungi. Clay received his BS in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from North Carolina State University and PhD in the same from Johns Hopkins University, where he worked with Professor Marc Ostermeier to engineer cancer therapeutic enzymes that are selectively active in the presence of a cancer marker. For his postdoctoral research, he worked with Professors Jennifer Nemhauser and Eric Klavins at University of Washington to study evolution and function of receptors for auxin, a critical plant growth hormone. Clay was recently awarded an NIH MIRA to further our understanding and engineering of chemically activated ubiquitin ligases, such as those that coordinate auxin signaling and other plant hormone signaling pathways.

  • Eric Young

    Eric Young received undergraduate degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering from the University of Maine at Orono. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. He completed postdoctoral research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology developing the MIT-Broad Foundry. Dr. Young is an Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering, with affiliate appointments in Biomedical Engineering and Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His research objective is to understand and engineer microbes that improve the human condition. This research program informs his educational goal – to train the current and future workforce for an economy shaped by engineered biology.

  • Fan Hong

    Fan is interested in developing biomolecular tools to dive into the complexity of biology (decoding and regulating cellular functions on the molecular basis at the tissue scale). Before joining the faculty at the University of Florida, Fan was a Postdoc Fellow at Wyss Institute at Harvard University where he worked on the DNA advanced in situ spatial multi-omics (e.g., DNA thermal-plex) in the Yin Lab. Thermal-plex enables multiplexed fluorescent imaging of biomolecules with unprecedented feasibility and speed for tissue biospecimen analysis. Fan completed his Ph.D. at Biodesign Institute at Arizona State University and worked in the Yan Lab, Green Lab, and Sulc Lab, where he developed methods to program nucleic acids in vitro (e.g., Framework DNA nanoarchitecture), in vivo (e.g., SNIPR), and in silico (e.g., crowder-oxDNA) to address grand questions with chemical approaches to biology. Those methods enable the control of nucleic acid folding into complex framework biomolecular architectures from the nanoscale to the macroscale, the regulation of cellular gene expression based on the single nucleotide mutation in cells with de-novo-designed RNA riboregulators, and the investigation of the biophysical behavior of nucleic acid folding in the crowding cellular environment with molecular dynamics.

  • Priyanka Nain

    I am Priyanka Nain, currently working as a postdoctoral researcher in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Department at the University of Delaware. Here, my research revolves around finding innovative solutions that integrate synthetic biology, sustainability, and healthcare. My Ph.D. is from the Chemical Engineering Department at IIT Delhi, where I was developing strategies to improve the production of biotherapeutic proteins. I am deeply passionate about sustainable biomanufacturing. I thrive on the scientific challenges involved in scaling up bioprocesses, from optimizing cell lines and media to fine-tuning fermentation feeding and control strategies, and analytical methods. But I also care deeply about the broader impact – delivering products that are both effective and accessible and manufactured in the interest of the environment.

  • Miguel Jimenez

    Miguel Jimenez is an Assistant Professor at Boston University, where he runs el Microbial Integration Group. The group integrates engineered microorganisms with mechanical and electronic devices for applications in human health, agriculture, the environment, and entertainment.

  • Sarah Hartley

    Technology governance is concerned with the decisions that shape how technology is funded, developed, regulated, tested, and deployed – it determines technology trajectories. My social science research takes a critical look at the politics and power in these governance decisions, particularly in efforts to open-up these expert spaces to diverse knowledge, values and visions through engagement and knowledge co-production – features that have become prevalent in technology governance in recent years. I’m particularly interested in the value tensions that exist in and between science and society when governance decisions are opened-up and, importantly, how to manage these tensions more effectively. I focus on the development and risk assessment of emerging technologies, particularly the biotechnologies (gene drive, genome-editing, genetic modification of animals, especially insects) and AL/digital technology applications in environment and agriculture. I am Co-Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training in Environmental Intelligence.

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