Profiles

  • Samuel MD Oliveira

    I am a Research Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) and the director of the Oliveira Lab (www.oliveiralab.me), a recently created research group at Boston University (BU). In addition, I am the Senior Manager of the DAMP lab (www.damplab.org) at BU.

    The Oliveira lab investigates the emergence of microbial community complexity and their underlying interactions in varying environmental contexts and studies microbial community design principles and metrics to help build novel collective behaviors. We hope that breakthroughs in computational and synthetic biology methods will accelerate our knowledge of the links between genetic sequences and intercellular communication to study and engineer the spatiotemporal behavior of biological networks. Among my key collaborators: i) Prof. Chris Voigt (MIT) for improving the predictive DNA design automation tool named Cello (Genetic Circuit Design Automation with Cello 2.0. Nature Protocols).

    In my early career, I have published more than 30 articles in journals, conference proceedings, and book chapters, acted as the guest Editor for JoVE, and as a reviewer for Nat. Comm., ACS Synth. Biol., Synth. Biol. J., among others. In addition, I have directly supervised and co-supervised 7 research staff, 7 graduate students (none of whom received their Ph.D. with me), 3 master’s students, and over 14 undergraduates. I was one of the recipients of the Sao Paulo Foundation’s Best Innovative Biotech Product Award in 2019. Based on that, I co-founded a commercial synthetic biology, automation-based company named Doroth (www.doroth.com.br) in Brazil.

    Currently, with the support from a $1.4M NSF grant, BU’s Professor Douglas Densmore (co-PI), Prof. Andrews (PI) from UMass Amherst, and my team (technical lead support) are teaming up on an ambitious effort to create microscopic, programmable “living devices” which can detect and neutralize specific toxic contaminants found in drinking water.

  • Maram Naji

    I am a chemical and biological engineering PhD student in the Lucks Lab at Northwestern’s Center for Synthetic Biology. My research centers on targeting riboswitches with antibiotics. I began working toward new infectious disease treatments as an undergraduate researcher in the Nuermberger Lab at the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research. I have also held internships in drug discovery, high throughput biology, and biomarker development at pharmaceutical companies and aim to use synthetic biology to expedite drug discovery and development in my career.

  • Maram Naji

    I am a chemical and biological engineering PhD student in the Lucks Lab at Northwestern’s Center for Synthetic Biology. My research centers on targeting riboswitches with antibiotics. I began working toward new infectious disease treatments as an undergraduate researcher in the Nuermberger Lab at the Johns Hopkins Center for Tuberculosis Research. I have also held internships in drug discovery, high throughput biology, and biomarker development at pharmaceutical companies and aim to use synthetic biology to expedite drug discovery and development in my career.

  • Dr. Muhammad Saad Ahmed

    The main research interest of Dr. Ahmed is to focus on industrially important metabolites production in microbes through the application of system metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. Previously, Dr. Ahmed developed industrially competitive microbial strains that were capable of producing industrially important secondary metabolites, for instance, β-amyrin, squalene, etc., and these strains are highly efficient for commercialization. Moreover, Dr. Ahmed expanded his research interest toward other industrially important metabolites, i.e., fragrance, flavor, and drugs, that might be in the category of alkaloids, sesquiterpenoids, monoterpenoids, diterpenoids, triterpenoids, and tetraterpenoids. These metabolites are normally used in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, and cosmeceuticals industries as raw materials for the production of medicines, foods, and cosmetics.

  • Sean Carr

  • Yogesh Goyal

    Yogesh Goyal is an Assistant Professor of Cell & Developmental Biology at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University. Yogesh received his B.Tech. with Honors in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar, and his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering focusing on quantitative developmental biology from Princeton University. Yogesh pursued postdoctoral work in single-cell systems and synthetic biology in Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Yogesh’s major honors include Burroughs Wellcome Fund CASI Award, Schmidt Science Fellowship, STAT Wunderkind, and the Jane Coffin Childs Fellowship. Yogesh’s group combines theory, computation, and single-cell resolved experiments to track and control cellular plasticity and fate choices in developing tissues and cancer.

  • Efrain Rodriguez-Ocasio

    PhD Candidate in Chemical Engineering, working on the development of engineered microorganisms for industrial applications. My current project focuses on microbial upcycling of plastic wastes using the biorefinery concept as a model. Having a bachelor’s in biotechnology and training in the engineering biology field, I am working towards a career at the nexus of science and engineering to better understand biological systems and how they can be leveraged to our advantage.

  • Andrea Poole

    I worked in synthetic biology for 4 years during my undergrad at Wright State University. During this time, I was part of multiple iGEM teams as a member and advisor. Now in graduate school, I joined a protein NMR lab where I look at how mutations in cancer change protein structure and ligand binding. In the future I want to have an industry job in synthetic biology.

  • Asfar Lathif Salaudeen

    I am a third-year Ph.D. student at UBC. I did my undergraduate in biotechnology in India and moved to Vancouver for graduate school. My research interests include synthetic biology, gene regulation and data science.

  • Eva Ottum

  • Franco Tavella

    I’m currently a graduate student in Biophysics at the University of Michigan. Originally, I’m from Argentina where I studied Physics and engaged in several research opportunities in synthetic biology. I’m passionate about working towards a more sustainable future by partnering with Biology.

  • Esther Jimenez

    I am a first-generation college graduate, now pursuing a Ph.D. at Rice University, from a Hispanic heritage that was born and raised in Houston, Texas. I entered Rice University as part of the Biochemistry and Cell Biology program and now have the privilege of being a part of the Ajo-Franklin, primarily focusing on furthering the field of Engineered Living Materials. In my free time, I enjoy spending time with my family, caring for my corgi Mocha, and trying the wide diversity of food Houston offers.

  • Natalia Crystal Ubilla-Rodriguez

    Natalia is currently a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. As an undergraduate at UC Santa Cruz, she was an NIH IMSD fellow (Initiative for Maximizing Student Development) and recipient of many awards including the UCSC Tony Fink Memorial Student Award and Koret Undergraduate Research Scholarship. Natalia is also a 2019 NIH Postbaccalaureate Research Education Program (PREP) and a 2020 Rackham Merit Fellow. Natalia is passionate about DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) efforts and her research interest broadly includes the functionality between cargo and bacterial nano compartments and their applications in synthetic biology and food systems.

  • Bojing Jiang

  • Tyler Lucci

    I am a class of 2026 PhD student in the chemical engineering department at Northwestern University. My research primarily focuses on cell-free synthetic biology with applications in biosensing. Prior to joining Northwestern University, I worked for three years as a chemical process engineer.

  • Wilson Sinclair

    Wilson Sinclair is a Postdoctoral Scholar at EBRC working in the Security focus area. His primary interests are synthetic biology investment, biosecurity policy, building a robust bioeconomy, and microbiome engineering. He is passionate about breaking down barriers between research disciplines and building bridges between experts in engineering biology and social sciences across academia, industry, government, and advocacy to solve complex global problems.

    Prior to joining EBRC, Wilson was a Science Policy Intern at the NIH Office of Science Policy where he supported short- and long-term development of programs relating to bioethics, data science, and clinical research policy. His graduate research utilized bioorthogonal chemistry to study host-pathogen interactions in tuberculosis for therapeutic discovery. Over nearly a decade at the bench, he has applied his broad skills as a chemical biologist to several projects across the fields of glycobiology, synthetic chemistry, cancer immunology, and epitranscriptomics.

    Wilson holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University. He also has a B.A. from Haverford College majoring in Chemistry with a Biochemistry concentration and Spanish minor. He is a Chicago native and enjoys spending his free time trying new restaurants, solving puzzles, and exploring museums.

  • Yuzhong Liu

    I grew up in Hangzhou, China and went on to pursue my B.Sc. degree in Chemistry at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor where I developed chemical tools for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease under the guidance of Professor Mi Hee Lim. In 2013, I started graduate school at UC Berkeley and joined Professor Omar Yaghi’s group where my research interest focused on the design and synthesis of crystalline woven covalent organic frameworks with exceptional mechanical properties. Since 2018, I have been a postdoctoral researcher in Professor Jay Keasling’s lab working on biosynthesis of terpene-derived molecules in yeast.

  • Victoria Yell

    I am in my fifth year of PhD research under the advisory of Dr. Sirius Li at North Carolina State University in the Department of Plant Biology. The focus of my research is understanding the genetic mechanisms that lead to detrimental growth effects in lignin bioengineered plants. While my main project is largely focused on basic science, I am very interested in the industrial applications, regulation, and deployment of bioengineered energy and bioproduct producing crops.

  • Christien Dykstra

    Ph.D. candidate working on receptor design for metabolic engineering. Instructor at the Canadian Synthetic Biology Education and Research Group (CSBERG) where we teach engineering biology principles to highschoolers and undergraduate students. My project focuses on opioid production and detection in yeast.

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