Experience

MeliBio
• United States
• Food and Beverage Services
• 1 - 100 Employee
• Associate Director of Microbial Development

  • Feb 2022 - Present


Zymergen

• United States
• Biotechnology Research
• 100 - 200 Employee

• Associate Director/Senior Manager/Technical Program Lead

  • Feb 2018 - Oct 2021

  • Technical program lead of a successful client-facing strain improvement program for a multinational fortune 500 food processing and commodities trading corporation - * Improved product yield of the client’s Escherichia coli commercial production strain by 50% and generated revenue for Zymergen. • Developed and managed to plan of record to keep the program on track and within budget • Coordinated workflows and activities of a large cross-functional team (fermentation, analytical… Show more • Technical program lead of a successful client-facing strain improvement program for a multinational fortune 500 food processing and commodities trading corporation - * Improved product yield of the client’s Escherichia coli commercial production strain by 50% and generated revenue for Zymergen. • Developed and managed to plan of record to keep the program on track and within budget • Coordinated workflows and activities of a large cross-functional team (fermentation, analytical chemistry, high-throughput screening, biorepository, test & strain development, legal, business development) • Responsible for strain engineering strategy and design decisions • Responsible for regular progress reporting to internal and client technical and leadership teams

• Scientist I & II

  • May 2016 - Jan 2018

  Emeryville, CA • Adapted assays from the literature to work in high-throughput & for a non-model gram-positive microbe • Developed and evaluated genetic tools - promoter, terminator, and ribosomal binding site libraries • Executed designs and genetic engineering of a gram-positive soil microbe for a client strain improvement program



Stanford University School of Medicine

• Hospitals and Health Care
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Postdoctoral Researcher

  • Jan 2015 - Apr 2016

  Department of Genetics (Pringle Lab) • Led research to develop genome editing technologies and identify neuropeptides and neuropeptide receptors responsible for metamorphosis in an emerging model organism – the sea anemone Aiptasia Department of Genetics (Pringle Lab) • Led research to develop genome editing technologies and identify neuropeptides and neuropeptide receptors responsible for metamorphosis in an emerging model organism – the sea anemone Aiptasia



James Cook University

• Australia
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• NSF International Postdoctoral Fellow

  • Jul 2012 - Nov 2014

  • Developed an assay to determine the spectra of orphan opsins transiently over-expressed in HEK cells • Cloned, expressed and partially characterized coral GPCRs (opsins and one carotenoid receptor) • Identified novel antimicrobial peptides in coral and identified and partially characterized a novel quorum quenching enzyme (Ntn hydrolase) from coral • Developed an assay to determine the spectra of orphan opsins transiently over-expressed in HEK cells • Cloned, expressed and partially characterized coral GPCRs (opsins and one carotenoid receptor) • Identified novel antimicrobial peptides in coral and identified and partially characterized a novel quorum quenching enzyme (Ntn hydrolase) from coral