Blake Simmons
Division Director, Biological Systems & Engineering
In addition to directing the Biological Systems & Engineering Division, Blake Simmons serves as the Chief Scientific and Technology Officer and Vice President of the Deconstruction Division at the US Department of Energy’s Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) in Emeryville. After earning his BS in chemical engineering from the University of Washington, Simmons continued his studies at Tulane University and received his doctorate in the same field. For 15 years, Simmons was part of the senior management team at Sandia National Laboratories, most recently serving as the Senior Manager of Advanced Biomanufacturing, Biomass Program Manager. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Queensland. His expertise includes biofuels, renewable chemicals, biomanufacturing, abiotic-biotic interfaces, biomass pretreatment, enzyme engineering, biofuel cells, templated nanomaterials, microfluidics, desalination, and biomineralization.
Aindrila Mukhopadhyay
Science Deputy
Aindrila Mukhopadhyay received an MSc in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, and has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago. She is a senior scientist and a principal investigator in the Ecosystems and Networks Integrated with Genes Molecular Assemblies (ENIGMA) Scientific Focus Area. Mukhopadhyay leads a multidisciplinary team to study stress response in bacteria using microbiological, biochemical, and systems biology tools. Additionally, she is the Vice President of the Fuels Synthesis Division and the Director of Host Engineering at JBEI. Her JBEI group develops tools of engineering E. coli and S. cerevisiae strains, and specifically focuses on developing robust strains that show high tolerance and productivity during biofuels and chemicals production.
Justin Heady
Deputy for Operations
Justin Heady joined Berkeley Lab as part of the Office of the Chief Financial Officer and the Biosciences Area in 2014. He has over 20 years of experience working at Merck and Princeton University before joining the Lab. Most recently, Heady was the Finance and Business Operations Manager for the Joint BioEnergy Institute, Biological & Systems Engineering Division, and the EmeryStation East Operations Center overseeing all financial and administrative responsibilities.
Nathan J. Hillson
Department Head, Biodesign
Nathan Hillson is the Director of Synthetic Biology Informatics, Fuels Synthesis and Technologies Divisions, at JBEI. Hillson, computational staff scientist, is also the Group Lead of Synthetic Biology Informatics at the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute, an affiliate investigator at the Engineering Biology Research Center (EBRC), and co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer at TeselaGen Biotechnologies. He holds a PhD in biophysics from Harvard.
Harshini Mukundan
Interim Department Head, BioEngineering & BioMedical Sciences
Harshini Mukundan is a scientist in the Biosciences Area, as well as the Chemical and Biological Technologies Program Lead in the Lab’s Office of National Homeland Security and the Area’s Strategic Programs Development Group. Before joining Berkeley Lab, Mukundun was the group leader for physical chemistry and applied spectroscopy at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and led the development of diagnostics and surveillance technologies in the interest of national and homeland security. Mukundun earned her PhD in biomedical science at The University of New Mexico School of Medicine and an MS at the National Institute of Immunology in India.
Deepti Tanjore
Department Head, Process Engineering & Analytics
Deepti Tanjore is Director of the Advanced Biofuels and Bioproducts Process Development Unit (ABPDU), where she has been a researcher since its inception in December 2011. In addition, she served as the principa investigator for the Berkeley Lab/BETO Feedstocks Conversion Interface Consortium. Tanjore is a two-time participant in the Lab Corps/Energy I-Corps program and a 2015 Berkeley Lab Women@TheLab awardee. She also serves on the advisory board for the BioManufacturing Program at Laney College in Oakland, Calif.
Tanjore earned her BTech in chemical engineering with a minor in biotechnology from Andhra University in Visakhapatnam, India. She has a MS in biological engineering with a minor in statistics from North Carolina State University and a PhD in biological engineering from Pennsylvania State University. She conducted postdoctoral research on chemical- and bio-catalysis for the production of bio-jet fuel precursors with Charles Wyman at UC Riverside.
