Joshua N. Leonard
Principal Investigator
Associate Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering
Co-Director, Northwestern Predoctoral Biotechnology Training Program
Co-Director, Graduate Cluster in Biotechnology, Systems, and Synthetic Biology
Founding Member, Northwestern Center for Synthetic Biology
Member, Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center
Member, Chemistry of Life Processes Institute
Mentor, Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Program (IBiS)
Mentor, Masters in Biotechnology Program
Mentor, Molecular Biophysics Training Program
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, University of California Berkeley, 2006
Management of Technology Certificate, Haas School of Business, 2005
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, 2000
Photo credit: Jim Prisching
Doctoral Students
Patrick Donahue
Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)
B.A. in Chemistry, B.A. in Molecular & Cellular Biology, Vanderbilt University, 2013
Lab member since 2014
Research Interests: Novel therapeutic strategies
Devin Stranford
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, B.S. in Biology, Minor in Chemistry, The University of Tulsa, 2015
Lab member since 2015
Research Interests: Synthetic biology and engineering therapeutic exosomes
Alexis Prybutok
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, B.S. in Biochemistry, Minor in Mathematics, University of Texas at Austin, 2016
Lab member since 2016 (co-advised with Neda Bagheri)
Research Interests: Computational immunology and complex phenomena
Hailey Edelstein
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, 2016
Master in Biotechnology, University of Pennsylvania, 2017
Lab member since 2017
Research Interests: Synthetic biology and engineering cell therapies
Kate Dray
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Kentucky, 2017
Lab member since 2017 (co-advised with Neda Bagheri)
Research Interests: Synthetic biology and computational biology
Simrita Deol
Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP)
B.S. in Biology, Cornell University, 2017
Lab member since 2019
Research Interests: Systems and synthetic immunology, computational biology, and oncology
Jonathan Boucher
Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program (IBiS)
B.S. in Human Physiology, Boston University, 2014
Lab member since 2019
Research Interests: Synthetic biology and novel therapeutic strategies
William Corcoran
Interdisciplinary Biological Sciences Graduate Program (IBiS)
B.S. in Biology, Carleton College, 2014
Lab member since 2019 (co-advised with Gabriel Rocklin)
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, receptor engineering, and machine learning
Taylor Gunnels
Department of Biomedical Engineering
B.S. in Biomedical Engineering, Boston University, 2014
Lab member since 2019 (co-advised with Neha Kamat)
Research Interests: Synthetic biology, cell-based therapeutics, and artificial cell-based therapeutics
Roxi Mitrut
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, Minor in Chemistry, University of Delaware, 2017
M.S. in Chemical Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, 2019
Lab member since 2019
Research Interests: Synthetic biology and engineering therapeutic exosomes
Kathleen Dreyer
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Chemical Engineering, University of Florida, 2018
Lab member since 2019
Research Interests: Computational and experimental design of novel therapeutics
Coco Nut the Palm Tree
Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering
B.S. in Beach Fun
Lab member since 2017
Research Interests: Criminal justice
Undergraduate Students
Kate Chambers
Biomedical Engineering
Lab member since 2019
Erin Kotzbauer
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Lab member since 2019
Austin Chen
Economics
Lab member since 2020
Isabelle Chen
Chemical and Biological Engineering
Lab member since 2020
Alumni
Graduate Students and Postdocs
Catherine Leites, Masters in Biotechnology (2009) – LinkedIn
Nicole Hataway, Masters in Biotechnology (2009) – LinkedIn
Sindhuja Sagar, Masters in Biotechnology (2010) – LinkedIn
Shirley Samuel-Abraham, Postdoctoral Fellow (2011)
Stephen Bi, BS/MS Biomedical Engineering (2012) – LinkedIn
Brendon Dusel, Masters in Biotechnology (2012) – LinkedIn
Jennifer Greenspan, Masters in Biotechnology (2012) – LinkedIn
Patrick Ho, Masters in Biotechnology (2012) – LinkedIn
Anthony Chipre, Chemistry (2012)
Ragan Pitner, BS/MS Biomedical Engineering (2013) – LinkedIn
Nichole Daringer, Ph.D. Chemical Engineering (2014) – LinkedIn
Yishan Chuang, Ph.D. Chemical Eningeering (2014) – LinkedIn
R. Michael Gower, Postdoctoral Fellow (2014) – LinkedIn
Rachel Dudek, Ph.D. Chemical Engineering (2015) – LinkedIn
Andrew Scarpelli, Ph.D. IBiS (2015) – LinkedIn
Danny Wells, Ph.D. Applied Math (2015) – LinkedIn
Michelle Hung, Ph.D. IBiS (2016) – LinkedIn
Stephen Lenzini, BS/MS Chemical Engineering (2016) – LinkedIn
Kelly Schwarz, Ph.D. Chemical Engineering (2017) – LinkedIn
Andrew Younger, Ph.D. IBiS (2017) – LinkedIn
Peter Su, MS Chemical Engineering (2017) – LinkedIn
Benji Leibowitz, BS/MS Chemical Engineering (2018) – LinkedIn
Daniel Fernandez, Masters in Biotechnology (2018) – LinkedIn
Austin Miller, Masters in Biotechnology (2018) – LinkedIn
Amy Hong, BS/MS Chemical Engineering (2019) – LinkedIn
Suchitra Sankaranarayan, Masters in Biotechnology (2019) – LinkedIn
Joseph Draut, BS/MS Chemical Engineering (2019) – LinkedIn
Taylor Dolberg, Ph.D. Chemical Eningeering (2020) – LinkedIn
Joseph Muldoon, Ph.D. IBiS (2020) – LinkedIn
Affiliated Students
Luke Vistain, Ph.D. IBiS (2017) – LinkedIn
Rotation Students
Adam Pah, IBiS (2008) – LinkedIn
Bethany Baumann, IBiS (2009) – LinkedIn
Andrew Scarpelli, IBiS (2010) – LinkedIn
Roli Mandhana, IBiS (2011)
Luke Vistain, IBiS (2011) – LinkedIn
Michelle (Marcus) Hung, IBiS (2011) – LinkedIn
Kasia Soczek, IBiS (2012)
Andrew Younger, IBiS (2013) – LinkedIn
Alexandra De Paz, IBiS (2013) – LinkedIn
Joseph Muldoon, IBiS (2014)
Soo Ro, IBiS (2014) – LinkedIn
Patrick Donahue, MSTP (2014) – LinkedIn
Nikita Divekar, IBiS (2015) – LinkedIn
Sophia Li, MSTP (2015)
Michael Vincent, IBiS (2017) – LinkedIn
Tae-Eun Kim, IBiS (2017)
Clare Harper, IBiS (2018)
Simrita Deol, MSTP (2018) – LinkedIn
Stephen Lander, MSTP (2018) – LinkedIn
William Corcoran, IBiS (2018) – LinkedIn
Jon Boucher, IBiS (2019) – LinkedIn
Michael Ray, IBiS (2019) – LinkedIn
Daniel Selgrade, MSTP (2019) – LinkedIn
Undergraduate Research Associates
Yedida Birnbaum, Biology (2010) – LinkedIn
Jennifer Darby, Chemical Engineering (2010) – LinkedIn
Alexandra Lichtor, Chemical Engineering (2011) – LinkedIn
Jessica Perez, MIT Bioengineering (2011) – LinkedIn
Eric DeFeo, Chemical Engineering (2011) – LinkedIn
Nirajan Rajkarnikar, Chemical Engineering (2011) – LinkedIn
Eric Jiang, Chemical Engineering and ISP (2011) – LinkedIn
Chen Zheng, Biomedical Engineering (2012) – LinkedIn
Samson Berhance, Yale University (2012) – LinkedIn
Darien Hannington, Chemical Engineering (2012)
Brianne Knickel, Chemical Engineering (2012) – LinkedIn
Bradley Solomon, ISP, Computer Science, Biology (2012) – LinkedIn
Louis Knapp, Chemical Engineering (2012) – LinkedIn
Camila Benaim, Computer Science (2013) – LinkedIn
Adam Spiegel, Biomedical Physics (2013)
Hector Castillo, Biomedical Engineering (2014)
Jason Arnold, Biomedical Engineering (2015) – LinkedIn
Austin Rottinghuas, University of Wisconsin Chemical Engineering (2015) – LinkedIn
Neil Dalvie, Chemical Engineering (2016) – LinkedIn
Pear Dhiantravan, Chemical Engineering (2016) – LinkedIn
Imran Khan, Biology (2016) – LinkedIn
Praneet Polineni, Biology (2016)
Shreya Udani, Biomedical Engineering (2016) – LinkedIn
Cameron McDonald, Chemical Engineering (2017) – LinkedIn
Everett Allchin, Chemical Engineering (2018) – LinkedIn
Andrea Shepard, Chemical Engineering (2018) – LinkedIn
Lauren Battaglia, BS Chemical Engineering (2018) – LinkedIn
Ashwin Kulkarni, Journalism and Biology (2018) – LinkedIn
Nicole Toussaint Nasta, Chemical Engineering (2018) – LinkedIn
Katie Zhu, Georgia Tech Biomedical Engineering (2018)
Siyuan Feng, Johns Hopkins Materials Science and Engineering (2018)
Chris Coleman, Computer Science (2019) – LinkedIn
Viswajit (Vis) Kandula, Biomedical Engineering (2019)
Parth Shah, Biochemistry/Biophysics, Economics, Science in Human Culture (2019) – LinkedIn
Brandon Lim, Biomedical Engineering (2019) – LinkedIn
Andrea Collins, Stanford University Computer Science (2019)
Marya Ornelas, Pitzer College Biochemistry (2019)
Elizabeth Schauer, Chemical Engineering (2020) – LinkedIn
Anthony Kang, Biochemistry/Biophysics, Science in Human Culture (2020) – LinkedIn
Visiting fellows
Ryan Cummings, MD, New York Medical College (2012)
