At LifeFoundry, I wore multiple hats, driving innovation, growth, and operations at the intersection of AI, automation, and synthetic biology: • Business Development Lead: Spearheaded end-to-end business development, from prospecting to contract negotiations and execution, ensuring successful partnerships and revenue growth. • Tech Leadership: Led cutting-edge machine learning and software projects, including an LLM-based protein engineering suite that enhanced client outcomes and an automated DNA design tool responsible for designing over 12M nucleotides. • Research & Product Management: Directed a team of 20+ scientists and engineers in R&D efforts, product development, and market launches. • Project Management: Delivered 20+ cross-functional customer-facing projects on strict timelines by streamlining project scoping, planning, and execution. • Operations & Strategy: Oversaw recruiting, performance evaluations, financial management, IP strategy, and fundraising efforts, leading to the successful hiring of 100+ employees and raising $20M+.LifeFoundry’s mission challenged me to integrate deep technical expertise with strategic thinking, building products and partnerships that push the boundaries of biotech innovation.

During my Ph.D. at UIUC, I combined robotics, machine learning, and bioinformatics to advance autonomous and high-throughput biological research, resulting in more than 10 publication (including 4 in Nature Biotech and Nature Communications) and 1,100+ citations: • Autonomous Research Robotics: Designed and built BioAutomata, the first fully autonomous research robot capable of performing biological experiments, generating data, and optimizing experimental design using Bayesian optimization to optimize black-box biological systems. • Bioinformatics tool development: Developed software to design millions of gRNA sequences for targeting arbitrary loci on S. cerevisiae and human genomes, enabling advanced genome editing, tagging, and binding applications. • High-Throughput DNA Design: Led the creation of iBioCAD, an intuitive drag-and-drop DNA design software capable of rapidly assembling thousands of plasmids in seconds, streamlining complex genetic engineering workflows.These projects blended cutting-edge computational techniques with experimental biology, showcasing the power of automation and AI in accelerating research and discovery.