PME - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Administrative Support
- Assistant Director of Administrative and Operational Support
- Assistant Director of the Administrative
Alicia Bearden-Mannie serves as the Assistant Director of the Administrative and Operational Support Team. She is responsible for developing and implementing employee training, succession, and mentoring plans for the administrative support team. She also leads the logistical organization of the PME Distinguished Colloquium Series. Alicia provides administrative support for Jun Huang.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Management and a Master of Science in Business Administration-Marketing from National-Louis University.
Job Titles:
- Director of Graduate Studies
- Professor
- Professor of Molecular Engineering, Vice
- Vice Dean for Education
Andrew Ferguson is a Professor of Molecular Engineering, Vice Dean for Education and Outreach, and Director of Graduate Studies for the PhD in Molecular Engineering at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
Andrew Ferguson joined the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering in July 2018 as an associate professor of immunoengineering. Prof. Ferguson received an M.Eng. in chemical engineering from Imperial College London in 2005, and PhD in chemical and biological engineering from Princeton University in 2010.
From 2010 to 2012 he was a postdoctoral fellow of the Ragon Institute of MGH, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT. He commenced his independent career in the department of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2012, and was promoted to associate professor of materials science and engineering and chemical and biomolecular engineering in 2018.
Ferguson's research uses computation and theory to understand and design self-assembling materials, macromolecular folding, and antiviral therapies. In his materials work, he applies nonlinear manifold learning to all-atom and coarse-grained simulations of polymers, peptides, and colloids to determine folding and assembly mechanisms and rational design principles. In his virology work, he developed a statistical inference procedure to translate viral sequence databases into empirical models of fitness, and coupled these landscapes with models of host-pathogen interaction to perform computational design of vaccine immunogens against HIV and hepatitis C virus.
In his enhanced sampling work, he combines tools from dynamical systems theory and nonlinear manifold learning to recover folding landscapes from experimentally- accessible molecular observables, and uses tools from deep learning for on-the-fly collective variable identification and accelerated recovery of molecular free energy landscapes in molecular simulation.
Ferguson is the recipient of a 2017 UIUC College of Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, 2016 AIChE CoMSEF Young Investigator Award for Modeling and Simulation, 2015 ACS OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2014 NSF Career Award, 2014 ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator, and was named the Institution of Chemical Engineers North America 2013 Young Chemical Engineer of the Year.
Ferguson is the recipient of a 2017 UIUC College of Engineering Dean's Award for Excellence in Research, 2016 AIChE CoMSEF Young Investigator Award for Modeling and Simulation, 2015 ACS OpenEye Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, 2014 NSF Career Award, 2014 ACS PRF Doctoral New Investigator, and was named the Institution of Chemical Engineers North America 2013 Young Chemical Engineer of the Year.
Ferguson Lab uses tools from theory, computation, data science, and machine learning to understand macromolecular folding, engineer self-assembling colloids and peptides, and design antiviral therapies.
Andrew Ferguson, professor of molecular engineering, manages both undergraduate and graduate educational matters at PME.
Job Titles:
- Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Stuart Rowan is the Barry L. MacLean Professor of Molecular Engineering and Director of the Materials and Sustainability Engineering Research Theme at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. He is also Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago.
Prof. Rowan was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, and grew up in Troon, Ayrshire, on Scotland's west coast. He received his BSc (Hons.) in Chemistry in 1991 from the University of Glasgow and stayed there for graduate school in the laboratory of Dr. David D. MacNicol, receiving his PhD in 1995. In 1994 he moved to the chemistry department at the University of Cambridge to work with Prof. Jeremy K. M. Sanders FRS. He moved across the Atlantic, and the continental U.S., to continue his postdoctoral studies with Prof. Sir J. Fraser Stoddart FRS at the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1998. In 1999 he was appointed as an Assistant Professor to the Department of Macromolecular Science and Engineering at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure in 2005, and became a Full Professor in 2008. In 2016, he joined the Institute for Molecular Engineering (now the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering) and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. He also has a staff appointment in the Chemical and Engineering Science (CSE) Division at Argonne National Laboratory.
He is a National Science Foundation CAREER awardee, received the Morley Medal (Cleveland ACS) in 2013, the CWRU Distinguished University Award in 2015, and the Herman Mark Scholar Award (ACS) in 2015. He is an ACS Fellow, an ACS POLY Fellow, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of ACS Macro Letters (https://pubs.acs.org/journal/amlccd), and is on the editorial advisory board for a number of journals.
He has published over 170 scientific papers and reviews. His research interests focus on the use of dynamic chemistry (covalent and non-covalent) in the construction and properties of structurally dynamic and adaptive polymeric materials. The current interests of his group span responsive polymers, sustainable materials, polymers for energy, biomaterials, and new polymer synthesis. Specifically, his group works on supramolecular polymers, dynamic covalent polymers, self-healing materials, responsive adhesives, metal-containing polymers, gels, biomaterials, cellulose nanocrystal/nanocellulose, and interlocked polymeric architectures.
Rowan Group focuses on studying the chemistry of non-covalent interactions (supramolecular chemistry). This is embodied by studying the synthesis of metallosupramolecular and stimuli-resonsive polymers; isolation and utilization of cellulose nanocrystals in biomimetic and porous systems; and finally, reversible covalent chemistry.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Molecular Engineering in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Job Titles:
- Assistant
- Senior Executive
- Administrative Support
- Senior Executive Assistant of the Administrative
Brandi Carr serves as the Senior Executive Assistant of the Administrative and Operational Support Team. She is responsible for developing and implementing team-building initiatives and mentoring plans for the administrative support team. She provides strategic support for PME Diversity & Inclusion Committee events. She provides administrative support for Andrew Ferguson, Supratik Guha, and Juan Mendoza.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication/Pre-Law from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign, a Master of Arts in Communications & Training from Governors State University, and a Master of Arts in Government with a focus on Law & Public Policy from Regent University. She is pursuing a PhD in Organizational Leadership (Higher education focus) from Concordia University.
Chloe Washabaugh works on a new approach to build quantum bits, relying on chemistry to assemble atoms in ways that achieve specific properties.
Job Titles:
- Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Matthew Tirrell is the D. Gale Johnson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago. His personal research specializes in the manipulation and measurement of polymer surface properties. Tirrell's work has provided new insight into phenomena such as adhesion, friction, and biocompatibility, and contributed to the development of new materials based on self-assembly of synthetic and bio-inspired materials.
Tirrell previously served as the dean of Pritzker Molecular Engineering from 2011 to 2023. Before that, he served as the Arnold and Barbara Silverman Professor and chair of the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and as professor of materials science and engineering and chemical engineering and faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Prior to that, he was dean of engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara for 10 years. Tirrell began his academic career at the University of Minnesota as an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering and later became head of the department. Tirrell also served as Deputy Laboratory Director for Science at Argonne National Laboratory, 2015-2018. Effective June 2022, he serves as Interim Deputy Laboratory Director for Science and Technology, where he is responsible for integrating the laboratory's research and development efforts and science and technology capabilities.
Tirrell received his BS in chemical engineering from Northwestern University and his PhD in polymer science and engineering from the University of Massachusetts. He has received many honors, including the Polymer Physics Prize of the American Physical Society and election to the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Matthew Tirrell is a pioneering researcher in the fields of biomolecular engineering and nanotechnology, specializing in the manipulation and measurement of the surface properties of polymers, materials that consist of long, flexible chain molecules. His work combines microscopic measurements of intermolecular forces with the creation of new structures. His work has provided new insight into polymer properties, especially surface phenomena, such as adhesion, friction, and biocompatibility, and new materials based on self-assembly of synthetic and bioinspired materials.
Job Titles:
- Design of Pectin - Based Bioink Containing Bioactive Agent - Loaded Microspheres for Bioprinting
Design of pectin-based bioink containing bioactive agent-loaded microspheres for bioprinting
Job Titles:
- Director of the Quantum Engineering Theme
David Awschalom, Liew Family Professor of Molecular Engineering, serves as the faculty director for the Quantum Engineering Theme.
David Taylor serves the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) as dean of students. In this capacity, he is the administrative lead on graduate student enrollment, funding, and well-being.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Electronic Structure
Giulia Galli is the Liew Family Professor of Electronic Structure and Simulations in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Chicago. She also holds a senior scientist position at Argonne National Laboratory, where she is a group leader and the director of the Midwest Integrated Center for Computational Materials. She is an expert in the development of theoretical and computational methods to predict and engineer material and molecular properties from first principles. Her research focuses on problems relevant to the development of sustainable energy sources and quantum technologies.
Prior to joining UChicago, she was professor of chemistry and physics at the University of California, Davis (2005-2013) and the head of the Quantum Simulations group at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL, 1998-2005). She holds a PhD in Physics from the International School of Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy.
She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, as well as a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is the recipient of several awards, including the Materials Research Society Theory Award, the American Physical Society David Adler Award in Materials Physics, the Feynman Nanotechnology Prize in Theory, the medal of the Schola Physica Romana and the Tomassoni-Chisesi award by La Sapienza University in Rome, Italy.
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial and Administrative Officer
- Chief Financial and Administrative Officer for the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
- Senior Associate Dean and Chief Operating Officer
Joshua Berg serves as chief financial and administrative officer for the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. He manages administrative staff and oversees organizational changes, coordinating with other leadership team members to support the school's academic, educational, and outreach missions. His responsibilities include:
Budget management and resource allocation
Accounting
Procurement
Grants & Contracts Management
Faculty and staff payroll
Staff organization and performance management
Faculty and Academic search, promotion, and retention support
Strategic Marketing and Communications
Information technology
Administrative Support
Facilities & Space
Access and Security management
Shipping and Receiving
Building Administration and Event Support
Laboratory Safety
Berg received his AB in psychology and MS in computational neuroscience from the University of Chicago, and his MBA in strategic leadership and management from the University of Kansas. He founded two companies focused on choice behavior prediction and has served in research, operations, and administrative roles at the University of Chicago for over 20 years.
Joshua Berg is PME's chief financial and administrative officer. He leads PME's HR, Academic & Faculty Affairs, Budget & Finance, MarComm, Facilities, IT, Lab Safety, and AdminOps teams to support PME's missions and strategic growth.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor
- Senior Advisor
- Assistant Professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
- Senior Advisor to the Dean for Diversity & Inclusion
Juan L. Mendoza has expertise in cancer research, bioinformatics, protein engineering, structural biology, and immunology.
Mendoza was named a 2023 Freeman Hrabowski Scholar by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), a new program supporting outstanding early career faculty who are committed to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in science.
He received a bachelor's degree in biochemistry from San Francisco State University and a doctorate in molecular biophysics with an emphasis in computational and systems biology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center.
As a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford University, his honors include an NIH NCI Career Development Award, and prestigious fellowships from the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation and the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation.
Prof. Mendoza joined the University of Chicago as assistant professor at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2018.
Mendoza Group's research focuses on understanding basic principles of protein function relevant to human health and disease. Protein families of interest include the interferon (IFN) superfamily of cytokines which are an essential part of the innate immune system, providing protection against the spread of viral infections and cancerous growths. There are three families of IFNs, type I-III, each with distinct ligand-receptor systems. By applying a protein engineering approach, we are able to rapidly evolve IFNs and visualize the three-dimensional shapes of interferon cytokines bound to their cellular receptors. When the sequence and structural information of the newly evolved interferon cytokines is combined with comprehensive biophysical and functional studies, we provide new insights into cytokine signaling and create new opportunities for developing promising molecules for basic research and clinical use. Further work in the lab focuses on developing computational tools to accelerate protein engineering efforts and extend our understanding of the protein sequence-structure-function paradigm to other protein superfamilies.
Juan Mendoza, assistant professor of molecular engineering, helps lead the development and implementation of diversity and inclusion initiatives at PME.
Job Titles:
- Lead Water Strategist
- Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Junhong Chen is currently a Crown Family Professor of Molecular Engineering at the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and lead water strategist at Argonne National Laboratory.
Prior to coming to Chicago, Prof. Chen served as a program director for the Engineering Research Centers (ERC) program of the US National Science Foundation (NSF). He also served as a co-chair of the NSF-wide ERC Working Group to design the ERC Planning Grants program and the Gen-4 ERC program. In addition, Chen was a representative from the Engineering Directorate serving on the NSF-wide Working Groups for NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) and NSF Research Traineeship (NRT).
Prior to joining NSF in May 2017, he was a regent scholar of the University of Wisconsin System, a Distinguished Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science and Engineering and an Excellence in Engineering Faculty Fellow in Nanotechnology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM). He served as the director of NSF Industry-University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) on Water Equipment & Policy (WEP) for six years. He founded NanoAffix Science LLC to commercialize real-time water sensors based on 2D nanomaterials.
Chen received his PhD in mechanical engineering from University of Minnesota in 2002 and was a postdoctoral scholar in chemical engineering at California Institute of Technology from 2002 to 2003. Chen is an elected fellow of National Academy of Inventors and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). He is a recipient of the International Association of Advanced Materials (IAAM) Medal. His start-up company, NanoAffix, is a recipient of the 2016 Wisconsin Innovation Award.
Junhong Chen Research Group's goal is to impact our society through scientific discoveries and sustainable technological innovations. His research interest lies in molecular engineering of nanomaterials and nanodevices, particularly hybrid nanomaterials featuring rich interfaces and nanodevices for sustainable energy and environment. His approach is to combine multidisciplinary experiments with first-principles calculations to design and discover novel nanomaterials for engineering various sensing and energy devices with superior performance.
Chen has made seminal contributions to general areas of hybrid nanomaterials and molecular engineering of various sensors and energy devices. He has published 250 journal papers and is listed as a 2017 and 2018 highly cited researcher (top 1%) in materials science by Clarivate Analytics. His research has led to nine issued US patents, five pending patents, and 13 licensing agreements. He is a pioneer in technology translation and commercialization through exemplary industrial partnership and the university start-up company.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Member of the Administrative
Kerensa Jackson-Burton serves as a member of the Administrative and Operational Team, which handles a diverse range of administrative tasks to coordinate the unit's day-to-day operations, special events, and seminars.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Sociology with a minor in African-American Studies from Bradley University and a Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in Paralegal Studies from Roosevelt University.
Keturah Mitchell-McCall serves as a member of the Administrative and Operational Support Team, which handles a diverse range of administrative tasks to coordinate the unit's day-to-day operations, special events, and seminars. She provides administrative support for Junhong Chen, Aaron Esser-Kahn, Alexander High, and Allison Squires.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Radio Broadcasting/Production from Columbia College Chicago and an MBA from Saint Xavier University.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor at the University of Palermo
Laura Gagliardi is the Richard and Kathy Leventhal Professor in the Department of Chemistry, with joint appointments in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and the James Franck Institute. She also directs the Chicago Center for Theoretical Chemistry.
Prof. Gagliardi became an assistant professor at the University of Palermo in 2002. In 2005, she became associate professor at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. She joined the University of Minnesota as a professor of chemistry in 2009, was appointed as Distinguished McKnight University Professor in 2014, and was awarded a McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in 2018. She served as the director of the DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center called Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center from 2014 to 2022. Since 2022 she has been serving as director of the DOE-funded Energy Frontier Research Center called Catalyst Design for Decarbonization Center.
Gagliardi has received the Pauling Medal Award, the Peter Debye Award in Physical Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, the Award in Theoretical Chemistry from the Physical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society, the Humboldt Research Award, and the Bourke Award of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and the Faraday Lectureship Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry, among others.
She is a fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Physical Society, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. She is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, Academia Europaea, the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, and the World Association of Theoretical and Computational Chemists. She is an associate editor of the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, which is the leading theoretical chemistry journal in the world.
The Gagliardi group develops novel wave function-based quantum chemical methods and applies them to study problems related to renewable energies. We combine multireference theories with density functional theory. We develop force-fields from first principles to be used in classical simulations. We employ these methods to explore molecular systems and materials relevant to catalysis, carbon dioxide separations, photochemical processes, spectroscopy and heavy-element chemistry.
Liang Jiang theoretically investigates quantum systems and explores various quantum applications, such as quantum sensing, quantum transduction, quantum communication, and quantum computation. His research focuses on using quantum control and error correction to protect quantum information from decoherence to realize robust quantum information processing. He has worked on modular quantum computation, global-scale quantum networks, room-temperature nano-magnetometer, sub-wavelength imaging, micro-optical quantum transduction, and error-correction-assisted quantum sensing and simulation.
Prof. Jiang received his BS from Caltech in 2004 and PhD from Harvard University in 2009. He then worked as a Sherman Fairchild postdoctoral fellow at Caltech. In 2012, Jiang joined the faculty of Yale University as an assistant professor and later as an associate professor of Applied Physics. He was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation Fellowship in 2013. In 2019, Jiang moved to his current position as professor at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Administrative Support
- Member of the Administrative
Manna Jiang serves as a member of the Administrative and Operational Team, which handles a diverse range of administrative tasks to coordinate the unit's day-to-day operations, special events, and seminars. She provides administrative support for Po-Chun Hsu, Chong Liu, Y. Shirley Meng, and Shuolong Yang. She also leads the logistical organization of the PME Distinguished Quantum Colloquium Series.
She holds a Bachelor of Science in Management from the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Job Titles:
- Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs
- William B. Ogden Professor
Melody A. Swartz is the William B. Ogden Professor in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, where she holds a joint appointment in the Ben May Department for Cancer Research. She obtained her BS from Johns Hopkins and PhD from MIT, both in chemical engineering, and carried out postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and the Brigham & Women's Hospital.
She started her independent career as an assistant professor at Northwestern University in the Department of Biomedical Engineering before moving to the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), where she was promoted to full professor and eventually served as director of the Institute of Bioengineering.
Trained as a bioengineer, Prof. Swartz uses quantitative approaches in immunobiology and physiology, including biotransport and biomechanics, to develop a deeper understanding of how the lymphatic system regulates immunity in homeostasis and disease, particularly in cancer and chronic inflammation. Her lab applies this knowledge to develop novel immunotherapeutic approaches in cancer, including lymph node-targeting vaccine approaches, as well as in vitro model systems that recapitulate relevant features of the tumor-immune interface.
Among her many honors, Swartz was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2023, National Academy of Medicine in 2020, elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2018, and named a MacArthur Fellow in 2012.
Swartz's research focuses on elucidating and exploiting the roles of lymphatic function as it relates to cancer and chronic inflammatory diseases including asthma, using a variety of interdisciplinary approaches from bioengineering, immunobiology, physiology, cell biology and biomechanics. Her lab works in both basic hypothesis-driven research as well as in translational applications.
Melody Swartz, William B. Ogden Professor of Molecular Engineering, is responsible for overseeing faculty searches, appointments, mentoring, tenure and promotions, and for facilitating faculty award nominations.
Job Titles:
- Dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular
- Dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Nadya Mason is the dean of the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago.
Mason specializes in experimental studies of quantum materials, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to maintaining a rigorous research program and teaching, Mason works to increase inclusivity and improve communication in the physical sciences. She can be seen promoting science on local TV, at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, and in a TED talk on "Scientific Curiosity."
Nadya Mason specializes in experimental studies of quantum materials, with a research focus on the electronic properties of nanoscale and correlated systems, such as nano-scale wires, atomically thin membranes, and nanostructured superconductors.
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Peter Maurer received his postdoctoral training in Steven Chu's group at Stanford University, where he focused on the development of novel nanoscale imaging technologies. Prior to joining the Chu Lab, Prof. Maurer received his PhD in physics from Harvard University, where he worked with Mikhail Lukin.
During his graduate work, Peter utilized tools from quantum optics to coherently control individual spins in diamond for applications in quantum information science and bio-sensing. Before moving to Harvard, Maurer obtained his undergraduate degree in physics at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH).
Maurer Lab focuses on the development and application of novel imaging and sensing modalities that enable the investigation of biological systems that are not accessible by conventional techniques. To this end, the lab explores coherent control techniques and quantum algorithms that harness solid state spin systems of increasing complexity and combines them with state-of-the-art biophysics tools. Such novel technologies include the development of a nanoscale quantum sensor for NMR spectroscopy of individual biomolecules, a single-molecule platform for quantum sensing, and the establishment of new nanophotonics techniques for bio-imaging.
Job Titles:
- Senior Associate Dean for Education and Strategy
Rovana Popoff supports graduate students in their academic engagement and progress, as well as oversees PME's community outreach efforts. She also coordinates PME's advisory council and works closely with Dean Tirrell on strategic planning.
Sam Marsden is working on creating a new form of polymer that will be as strong as polyethylene, but as recyclable as PET.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Biological and Immuno Engineering Research Theme at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
- Professor of Molecular Engineering
Savas Tay is a Professor of Molecular Engineering and Director of the Biological and Immuno Engineering Research Theme at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. He is also a member of the Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology at the University of Chicago. He studies how cells communicate with each other using signaling networks and develops single-cell and single-molecule technologies for high-throughput analysis and computational modeling for complex biological systems.
Prof. Tay has received the European Research Commission ERC Starting Grant (2013) and Paul G. Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2019). He has published extensively in scientific journals including Nature, Science, Cell, PNAS, Nature Methods, Molecular Cell, Science Advances, and others. His work in engineering and biology was featured in many media outlets, including BBC, Bloomberg News, CNN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, National Public Radio, Daily Telegraph, Nikkei, MIT Technology Review, EMBO Seven Stones, and Faculty of 1000 Biology.
Prior to joining the University of Chicago, he was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich. Prof. Tay received his PhD in Optical Sciences from the University of Arizona and conducted postdoctoral research at Stanford University Bioengineering Department.<.p>
Savas Tay is a systems biologist and bioengineer working at the interface of biology, physics, and engineering. His overarching goal is to understand how biological systems work from an engineer's perspective and use this knowledge to manipulate cells and gene pathways to help cure diseases. On the technology front, his lab develops high-throughput and high-content single-cell analysis devices by integrating microfluidics, computation, and optics. Recently, Tay Lab developed a single-cell proteomics method that enables simultaneous measurement of proteins, protein complexes, and mRNA in thousands of individual cells.
A main focus for Tay Lab is to understand the role of molecular pathway dynamics in cellular information processing, pathogen sensing and recognition, and cellular communication. Tay Lab performs precision dynamic measurements on living cells and develops predictive models of complex systems like the immune system. Such models can serve as a rapid test-bed for drug studies and genomic perturbations.
Technologies developed by the Tay Lab create realistic microenvironments that mimic living tissue and measure dynamic processes in individual cells with extreme precision and throughput. Tay is also interested in translating such technologies to real-life biomedical applications.
Dr. Tay's work on NF-κB, a key transcription factor that regulates thousands of immune genes, was published in leading scientific journals such as Nature, Cell, and PNAS. He discovered that cells activate NF-κB in an all-or-none fashion, similar to a digital switch. Recently, he discovered that molecular noise improves cellular signal transmission and showed how oscillatory inputs control transcriptional dynamics by synergizing with molecular noise. His studies showed how local signaling dynamics regulate gene expression in space and time.
Savas Tay, Professor of Molecular Engineering, serves as the faculty director for the Biological and Immuno Engineering Research Theme.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Materials and Sustainability Engineering Research Theme
Stuart Rowan, Barry L. MacLean Professor for Molecular Engineering Innovation and Enterprise, serves as the faculty director for the Materials and Sustainability Engineering Research Theme.
Job Titles:
- Senior Advisor
- Member of the National Academy of Engineering
- Professor
- Professor at Pritzker Molecular Engineering
Supratik Guha is a professor at Pritzker Molecular Engineering and senior advisor to Argonne National Laboratory's Physical Sciences and Engineering directorate, leading the lab's microelectronics and quantum information science strategic efforts.
Prof. Guha led the Center for Nanoscale Materials, a US Department of Energy Office of Science user facility, from 2015 to 2019. Before joining Argonne and the University of Chicago in 2015, he spent twenty years at IBM Research, where he last served as the director of physical sciences. At IBM, Guha pioneered the materials research that led to IBM's high dielectric constant metal gate transistor, one of the most significant developments in silicon microelectronics technology. He was also responsible for initiating or significantly expanding IBM's R&D programs in silicon photonics, quantum computing, sensor based cyberphysical systems, and photovoltaics.
Guha is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the Materials Research Society, American Physical Society, a 2018 Department of Defense Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellow, and the recipient of the 2015 Prize for Industrial Applications of Physics. He received his PhD in materials science in 1991 from the University of Southern California, and a BTech in 1985 from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur. At the University of Chicago and Argonne, his interests are focused on discovery science in the area of nano-scale materials and epitaxy for energy, sensing and future information processing.
Guha Lab's research focuses on new materials and systems for information processing and sensing. Current projects are in the following areas:
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Molecular Engineering in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Tian Zhong's research focuses on developing enabling nanophotonic and molecular technologies for building an efficient, global-scale Quantum Internet. In the past decade, Prof. Zhong's work has contributed to significant progress in nanoscale quantum network nodes and high-throughput quantum communication links interconnecting distant nodes. His efforts from atomic-molecular physics and photonics aspects converge to a vision to advance state-of-the-art quantum information technologies to bring Quantum Internet one step closer to reality.
Prof. Zhong has pioneered the field of rare-earth quantum nanophotonics. Rare-earth ion doped crystals are attractive quantum materials with exceptional coherence properties. By leveraging the modern photonic technologies, he has developed a versatile rare-earth nanophotonic platform that could enable scalable quantum optical networks.
Prof. Zhong was a postdoctoral fellow in the Institute of Quantum Information and Matter and the Department of Applied Physics and Material Science at the California Institute of Technology. He completed his PhD in Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2013. Before his PhD, he obtained his Master of Science degree at MIT in 2009 and finished his undergraduate studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore in 2007.
Zhong Lab focuses on developing enabling nanoscale photonic and molecular (e.g. rare-earth-ion doped crystals) technologies for building quantum hardware to realize an efficient, scalable quantum internet.
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant
- Member of the Administrative
Vanessa Fortenberry serves as a member of the Administrative and Operational Team, which handles a diverse range of administrative tasks to coordinate the unit's day-to-day operations, special events, and seminars. She provides administrative support for Peter Maurer, Savas Tay, and Karen Jackson.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science with a minor in African-American Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana/Champaign.
Job Titles:
- Molecular Engineering and Vice Dean for Faculty Affairs in the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering