Anita Shukla
Center for Biomedical Engineering
Brown University Anita Shukla is an Assistant Professor of Engineering and a member of the Center for Biomedical Engineering at Brown University. Professor Shukla's research focuses on designing responsive and targeted biomaterials for applications in drug delivery and regenerative medicine. She is particularly passionate about using these materials for treating infection and studying stem cell behavior. Professor Shukla is the recipient of several national and university honors and awards for both her research and teaching, including an Office of Naval Research Director of Research Early Career Grant and a Brown University Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Prior to joining Brown in 2013, Professor Shukla was an NIH Ruth Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University. She received her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011 as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. Professor Shukla also received a Master's of Science in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT. She received her Bachelor's of Science at Carnegie Mellon University in 2006 with majors in chemical engineering and biomedical engineering. Group website Bin Zhang
Department of Chemistry
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Bin Zhang is an assistant professor in the Chemistry department at MIT. He attended the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) as a chemical physics major, where he developed a strong interest in theoretical chemistry through the undergraduate research program in the group of Jinlong Yang. Bin received numerous awards for his outstanding academic performance, including the prestigious Tang Zhongying Scholarship and the Guo Moruo Scholarship, which is the highest honor for undergraduate students. After graduating from USTC in 2007, Bin moved to the United States to pursue doctoral research at the California Institute of Technology in Thomas Miller’s group. His thesis work on Sec-Facilitated Protein Translocation and Membrane Integration was recognized with the Herbert Newby McCoy Award, the highest award for graduate scientific research from Caltech. Upon graduation, Bin accepted a position as a postdoctoral scholar with Peter G. Wolynes at the Center for Theoretical Biological Physics at Rice University. Bin joined MIT faculty as an assistant professor in 2016. His research focuses on studying three-dimensional genome organization with interdisciplinary approaches that combine bioinformatics analysis, computational modeling and statistical mechanical theory. Group website Rebecca Jockusch
Department of Chemistry
University of Toronto Rebecca A. Jockusch is an Associate Professor and the Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Chemistry Department at the University of Toronto. She has a B.A. in physics from Carleton College (1993) and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley (2001). In between, she taught English for two years in elementary and junior high schools in Japan. Rebecca pursued post-doctoral studies at Oxford University, where she held a Royal Society USA Research Fellowship and was a Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College. While at University of Toronto, she has held the Canada Research Chair in Biophysical Analytical Chemistry and was the recipient of Early Researcher Awards from the Province of Ontario and from the American Society for Mass Spectrometry (ASMS). Rebecca served as Secretary and Member of the Board of ASMS from 2013-2015 and has recently joined the editorial board of the Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. Rebecca’s research program employs techniques from chemistry, biology and physics to investigate the properties of biological molecules, both in isolation and in complexes. Factors affecting protein conformation and dynamics, including the role of water in biological systems, are of particular interest. The unique instrumentation developed in her laboratory for these studies combine trapping mass spectrometers with recent advances in technology for laser spectroscopic experiments. Research highlights include the implementation of sensitive fluorescence detection in order to monitor the conformation of biomolecular ions inside a mass spectrometer via fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) techniques. Group website |
Matt Trau
Department of Chemistry
University of Queensland Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology Matt Trau is currently a Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Centre for Personalised Nanomedicine at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. He is also senior group leader and co-founder of the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (AIBN). His research is dedicated towards developing innovative nano-diagnostics to help transform the healthcare system towards early detection and personalized treatment of disease. This approach aims to dramatically extend high quality human life through a combination of innovative diagnostic technology, molecular-guided therapies and preventative measures. Since graduating from the University of Sydney (BSc Hons I, University Medal) and the University of Melbourne (PhD in Physical Chemistry, 1993), he has held positions within industry and academia across the globe. These include a Fulbright Research Fellowship at Princeton University, USA, a research scientist at Dow Chemical and ICI Pty Ltd. Matt has also been a Visiting Professor at two of the largest Cancer Research Centres in the world: The Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston (2000), and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Centre, Seattle (2008). Matt is internationally recognised for his innovative and cross-disciplinary research at the interface between chemistry, nanotechnology, biology and medicine. He has co-authored more than 200 publications, many of which appear in the highest impact journals in his field, e.g., eleven Science and Nature family journal publications overall to date. His major awards and honours include an ARC Federation Fellowship (one of the most prestigious scientific fellowships in Australia), a Fulbright Research Fellowship to the US, a “Young Tall Poppy" Award for Queensland, a UQ Foundation/Vice Chancellor’s Research Excellence Award, a Paul Harris Fellowship, and a Pink Circle Award for breast cancer research excellence. Matt is also the co-founder of Xing Technologies Pty Ltd, a biotechnology company located in Brisbane. Group website Brian IngallsDepartment of Applied Mathematics
University of Waterloo Brian Ingalls is a faculty member in the Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo, where he is cross-appointed to the departments of Biology and Chemical Engineering. His research in systems and synthetic biology is focused on the development of mathematical models to predict the behavior of intracellular molecular networks and heterogeneous cellular communities. Group website Sabrina Leslie
Department of Physics
McGill University Sabrina Leslie's academic training began in 1998 as an undergraduate at UBC, where she graduated from the Honours Physics and Mathematics Program as a Canada Scholar and recipient of the CK Choi Presidential Award. In 2002, She moved to UC Berkeley as an NSERC fellow to pursue doctoral studies in optical and atomic physics. Under the guidance of Dr. Dan Stamper-Kurn, She pioneered imaging experiments of disorder-to-order transitions of atomic vapours held in optical traps. In 2009, she made a significant transition, from visualizing atoms in vacuum chambers, to visualizing biomolecules in liquids; a transition by a desire to get a little closer to life in her research. This transition to the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University was made possible with a Mary Fieser post-doctoral fellowship, with the mandate to explore this inspiration. At Harvard, she invented a single-molecule imaging technology called Convex Lens-induced Confinement (CLiC), which established her as a pioneer in single-molecule investigations with a range of applications. In 2012, she became an Assistant Professor at McGill University and founded her research group. Professor Leslie has developed CLiC into a platform technology and used it for new studies of nucleic acids, proteins, polymers, nanomaterials, biologics, cells, etc. To expand and commercialize her technology and key applications, she co-founded a start-up company ScopeSys, with a technical and business team based in Canada. Group website |