Stephanie Kung Email & Phone Number

• Engineered strains producing industrially relevant molecules to meet key performance indicators and cost targets for manufacturing, with 5 strains in or ready for production at commercial scale
• Identified bottlenecks and devised strategies to improve strain performance through physiological improvements, genetic switches, and enzyme engineering
• Developed, troubleshooted, and tested various genome-editing methods, including MAD7, and assessed effects of different nucleases on strain stability, health, and production capabilities
• Designed fermentation experiments, analyzed data, and optimized conditions to improve strain performance in fermentation
• Collaborated with HTS and chromatography departments to develop and optimize high-throughput assays and plate models for screening mutagenesis, ORF overexpression, transporter, and enzyme diversity libraries
• Devised and implemented DOE and D-optimal experiments to efficiently design and optimize expression of heterologous metabolic pathways in production strains

• Managed a project team of 8 members from different departments including strain engineering, assay development, high-throughput screening, fermentation, and process development
• Coordinated resourcing within the project and across the company to achieve project goals, including development, testing, and implementation of UV-based high-throughput assay for screening enzyme libraries
• Engineered P450 mono-oxygenase to increase production of artemisinic acid; inventor on pending patent based on this work
• Optimized expression of cellular and metabolic pathways to improve strain performance in fermentation to reduce manufacturing costs
• Communicated both technical and high-level results to external collaborators and potential partners through written reports and in-person meetings

Emeryville

• Developed and optimized novel CRISPR-Cas9 multiplex engineering methods in non-model host organisms, and co-authored a paper based on this work
• Implemented novel multiplex genome editing techniques produce molecules of industrial importance in new organisms

Emeryville, CA

Berkeley, CA

• Awarded a USDA AFRI Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 2011.
• Identified and characterized a novel method of horizontal gene transfer in an agriculturally relevant bacterial plant pathogen
• Characterized bacterial strains and mutants through pathogenicity and growth assays, fluorescent microscopy, and bioinformatics analysis
• Developed methods for rapid microbial pathogen detection, quantification, identification, andisolation from environmental and laboratory samples using qPCR, PCR, and culturing methods

Washington D.C. Metro Area

MAP Sustainable Energy Fellow. Researched climate change and sustainable energy. Contributed to several Worldwatch publications, including State of the World 2007, American Energy Report and World Watch magazine.

Palo Alto, CA

Developed methods and designed a statistical model for determining protease specificity using LC/MS.

Palo Alto, CA

Researched the effects of synthetic cofactors on the activation energy of photoactive proteins.

Ph.D., Microbiology

Awarded a two year USDA AFRI Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, 2011 Advisor: Dr. Rodrigo Almeida Dissertation titled "Horizontal gene transfer.

B.S., Biological Sciences

Graduated with honors. Thesis titled "The role of PAS, GGDEF, and EAL-domain containing proteins in the physiology of Shewanella.