Search by Last Name: A-G H-K L-Q R-U V-Z
A-G
Komandoor Achyuthan
Principal Member of Technical Staff
Achyuthan engages in research and development of chemical and biological sensors using volatile organic compounds as markers of chemical vapors, biological organisms, and disease diagnostics.
Stephen Anthony
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Anthony’s research focuses on developing and applying quantitative imaging and multivariate analysis tools to study the spatio-temporal relationships that underlie key biological processes.
Darren Branch
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Branch’s research interests include: micro and nanosystems for chemical and biological analysis and sensing, neurological interfaces, adaptive biological interfaces, acoustic wave biosensors and actuators, surface acoustic wave modeling, quartz resonator modeling, computational acoustics, piezoelectric materials, tunable materials and characterization, sensor arrays and pattern recognition, RF sensor systems.
Catherine Branda
Senior Manager, Radiation Signatures and Detection S&T
The Applied Bioscience & Engineering group at Sandia has expertise in microbiology, virology, phycology, molecular biology, bioinformatics, engineering, and modeling. The multidisciplinary team addresses a number of key problems impacting national security, including algal biomass fuel and chemical development, biodefense and emerging infectious disease, and real-time health and performance monitoring.
Steven Branda
Principal Member of Technical Staff
Branda is a microbiologist and molecular geneticist with extensive experience in characterization of bacterial pathogens and their interactions with the host.
Kimberly Butler
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Butler’s research intersects nanomaterials, biology, genetics, genome editing, and novel imaging modalities.
Angela Combs
Laboratory Technologist
Combs explores modes of human performance enhancement within multiple domains including the use of physiological metrics, visual inspection performance, and hacking behaviors – specializing in wearable devices.
Ryan Davis
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Davis researches algae for biobased commodities, biomarker discovery and multifactorial analysis, high performance fuels, biomaterials, and biomimetic systems.
Mark Forrer
R&D Computer Science
Forrer develops and supports the Experiment Data Depot, a software repository of standardized biological experimental data and metadata. He works with cross-functional teams of scientists and engineers to both learn about and support science using his software engineering skills.
Gina Geiselman
Senior R&D Laboratory Support Technologist
Geiselman engineers microorganisms to produce different industrially-relevant molecules of interest that will improve the bioeconomy by decreasing the cost and time of establishing said bioproducts.
John Gladden
Manager, Biomaterials & Biomanufacturing
Gladden develops technologies for the efficient deconstruction of biomass into fermentable sugars for conversion into biofuel. He also develops expression systems for high-titer enzyme production.
H-K
Brooke Harmon
Manager, Biotechnology & Bioengineering
Harmon has extensive experience in drug discovery, virology, immunology, gene editing, molecular biology, high throughput screening, assay development, and bio-detection technology assessment. Her current research is focused on the development and use of biochemical and cell-based assays to discover novel small molecule and antibody therapeutics for emerging viruses and other evolving biodefense targets.
Mike Kent
Principle Member of Technical Staff
Kent researchers cellulose and lignin breakdown using catalysts and enzymes. He also studies protein structure, enzymology, antibiotics, viruses, and therapeutic antibodies.
James Kirby
R&D Biological Sciences
Kirby’s research interest is primarily metabolic engineering of microbes for the sustainable production of bioproducts. He is particularly interested in terpenes and the fungus Rhodosporidium toruloides.
Raga Krishnakumar
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Raga Krishnakumar’s main area of research is detecting, understanding, and regulating mammalian cell fate, including fate changes with response to environmental stimuli such as infectious agents or stress conditions.
L-Q
Alexander Landera
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Alexander Landera’s research interests include physical property predictions via Equation of State modeling. Having relevance in fuel and engine design, these property predictions inform future developments of gasoline fuels, diesel fuels, and aviation fuels.
Catherine Mageeney
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Catherine Mageeney’s scientific research interest is studying alternative ways to fight antibiotic resistant bacteria. She has been working to examine genomic islands found within bacteria to find bacteriophages integrated into the host’s chromosome.
Robert Meagher
Principal Member of Technical Staff
Meagher’s main research interest is the development of novel techniques and devices for nucleic acid analysis, particularly applied to problems in infectious disease, biodefense, and microbial communities. Most recently this has led to approaches for simplified molecular diagnostics for emerging viral pathogens which are suitable for use at the point-of-need or in the developing world.
Philip Miller
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Miller is interested studying biological systems via creation of devices/sensor systems capable of providing new insight into these hard to decipher physiological processes. Some of his recent work includes the development of microneedle sensors for monitoring stress in plants and ingestible capsules for sample collection in the GI tract.
Matthew Moorman
Manager, Biological & Chemical Sensors
Moorman’s work focuses on MEMS chemical sensor development and the system-level packaging of chemical analysis systems and components. His recent work has focused on detecting and characterizing the volatile organic compounds produced by bacteria, plants, and algae.
William Morrell
R&D Computer Science
Morrell’s work focuses on laboratory data management systems, applying information technology to facilitate collaboration, analysis, archives, and reproducibility. This work includes both writing custom software and integrating it with existing software, working on the Internet, instrument controller workstations, servers, and personal computers.
Oscar Negrete
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Negrete is a virologist with a special interest in emerging viruses and a focus on molecular viral-host interactions. His research uses a broad spectrum of cellular, molecular biology, functional genomics, and nanoscience techniques to dissect host pathways involved in virus replication and deliver anti-viral cargos using nanoparticles.
Kylea Parchert
R&D S&E, Biological Sciences & Engineering
Parchert’s current research examines the interaction of virus and host cell components. The aim of this research is to develop innovative viral diagnostic strategies utilizing these host-pathogen interactions.
Kent Pfeifer
Microwave and Sensor Engineer
Pfeifer’s research interests include high-performance radiation and explosives detection, electrostatic discharge mechanisms and mitigation, surface plasmon resonance sensors, acoustic-based sensors, ion mobility spectroscopy, and holographic correlation spectroscopy.
Ronen Polsky
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Polsky’s research activities are focused on the fundamental principles and fabrication of devices related to chemical and biological sensors.
Kunal Poorey
Senior Member of Technical Staff
Kunal’s work at Sandia is mostly focused on the development of computational tools in biodefense, infectious diseases, microbiome, biomass/biofuel and microbial ecology. Kunal has also built software tools to analyze sequencing data and apply machine-learning techniques for RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, CLK-ChIP-seq, Tiling arrays, expression arrays, Metagenomics and Amplicon sequencing.
R-U
Susan Rempe
Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff
Rempe’s current work focuses on theoretical studies and molecular simulations of solutions, polymers, and biomolecules. In addition to expanding basic science, insights from those studies inform synthesis of new materials for water purification, energy storage, gas (CO2) separations, new molecules for cancer treatment, and antimicrobials.
Alberto Rodriguez
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Alberto Rodriguez is interested in the biological valorization of lignocellulosic biomass with an emphasis on the production of biofuels and bioproducts using metabolically-engineered microorganisms.
Ken Sale
Deputy Director of Microbial and Enzyme Discovery
Sale’s expertise is in structural and computational biology, enzymology, enzyme engineering, EPR spectroscopy, statistics, and data analytics.
Jason Sammon
Member of Technical Staff in Chemistry
Sammon’s research concentrates on the development of microsensors, micro-gas chromatography, and chemical instrumental analysis. He also researches different methods to collect chemical samples for analysis and develop unique solutions to chemical sampling and analysis issues in various field environments.
Chuck Smallwood
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
Smallwood has a broad area of expertise in research areas such as cellular receptor binding, uptake, signaling, and expression; metabolic pathway modeling and engineering; high-throughput bio- and chemical imaging and detection using micro devices; multi-omics; bioproduction of high value chemicals and materials; photosynthetic systems physiology; microbial cellular physiology; and cellular mechanisms of drug and antibiotic resistance.
Jerilyn Timlin
Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff
Timlin’s research develops and applies novel advanced imaging and spectroscopic-based tools in conjunction with multivariate image analysis to understand the fundamental spatial-temporal relationships that govern complex biological processes.
Mary Tran-Gyamfi
Member of the Technical Staff
Tran-Gyamfi studies plants, algae, fungi and yeast and has been able to understand the complexities and the roles that differing organisms can play in bioenergy. She works in the bioconversion of algal carbohydrate and proteins, engineers and screens yeast to produce terpenes, and runs algae testbed experiments.
V-Z
Joshua Whiting
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Whiting uses GC and GCxGC tools to advance chemical sensing. He is applying those technologies and others he has developed to increase Sandia’s knowledge of complex volatile organic compounds produced by biological organisms.
Kelly Williams
Principal Member of the Technical Staff
Williams’ studies how pathogenic bacterial genomes evolve. One of his software tools examines the numerous DNA mobility events that can occur in different subpopulations of a single overnight culture. Other software precisely maps mobile genomic islands and transposons.
Dongmei Ye
Member of the Technical Staff
Ye’s research interests are cell-free protein synthesis, protein engineering, cell signaling pathway regulations, nerve agent countermeasure development, and biomarker identification.