As a fourth year undergraduate pursuing her senior thesis in bioengineering, I am excited to utilize the knowledge and training I have gained over the years from the challenging courses at Caltech and my research experiences in Dr. Richard Murray's lab. My project aims to improve synthetic cell division by first incorporating microtubules in synthetic cells with a protein ring to make division more symmetrical, and then engineering an autonomous cell membrane cleavage mechanism. This will have profound implications in nanotechnology, materials science, and synthetic biology.