Education

• B.S., Chemistry, Hampton University, 2011
• Ph.D., Bioengineering, University of California, Riverside, 2016

Research Interests

• DNA nanotechnology
• Microbiome Engineering
• Systems Biology
• Biological Control Circuits
• Active Project: DARPA MTO, MICA Program, The BioLogical Translator. 2025 – 2028. Collaborators: Leopold Green (PI), Ashraf Alam (Co-I), Michael Ladisch (Co-I), Chengde Mao (Co-I), Karthik Sankar (Co-I), Dana Weinstein (Co-I).
• Active Project: National Institute of Food and Agriculture: 23078509, A model plant-soil system for assessing genetic biocontainment and its use in evaluating the evasion risk of a ‘kill switch’ circuit. 2023 – 2026. Collaborators: Roland Wilhelm (PD), Leopold Green (co-PD), Jianxin Ma (co-PD).
• Active Project: National Science Foundation: 23057066, IBD theragnostic system: integrating data science, synthetic biology, and additive manufacturing. 2023 – 2027. Collaborators: Ana Maria Estrada Gomez (PI), Leopold Green (Co-I), Mohammad Azad (Co-I), Bo Wang (Co-I).
• Completed Project: Purdue Institute for Cancer Research, Designing Probiotic Strains to Deliver Novel Treatments for Oral Cancer. 2025 – 2026. Collaborators: Marxa Figueiredo (PI), Leopold Green (Co-I).
• Completed Project: Center for Translational Science (CTS) - NIH: 25036029, DNA Tetrahedra Cholesterol Anchoring for Drug Delivery Across the Blood-Brain Barrier. 2025 – 2026. Collaborators: Leopold Green (PI), Tamara Kinzer Ursem (Co-I), Gregory Knipp (Co-I).
• Completed Project: ResearchHub Seed Grant: DNA Tetrahedra Cholesterol Anchoring for Drug Delivery Across the Blood-Brain Barrier. 2024. Collaborators: Leopold Green (PI), Tamara Kinzer Ursem (Co-I), Gregory Knipp (Co-I), Grigorii Rudakov (Trainee).
• Completed Project: Office of Naval Research: N00014-21-1-2624, Blue Integrated Partnerships (BIP): Mentoring theMedici Scholars to Solve Tomorrow's Big Challenges, 2022 – 2023.

Publications