Lab Director
Enoch Yeung
is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He earned his PhD from the California Institute of Technology in 2016 in Control and Dynamical Systems and his Bachelors in 2010 from BYU with University Honors, magna cum laude. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation CAREER award, the Army Young Investigator Program award, and the Keck Foundation award, and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Outstanding Performance Award.
Prior to his appointment at UCSB, Enoch was a Senior Research Scientist for the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), working on research problems at the interface of synthetic biology and machine learning, harnessing the genetics of non-model microbes, and new artificial intelligence algorithms to bootstrap synthetic biology design and analysis in non-model microbes. At UCSB, he is studying how genetics and dynamics of gene expression in microbes can be blended and harnessed to enact new biophysical mechanisms for transcriptional control and biosensing.
Codebase: YeungRepo
Current Lab Members
Lili Yang
is a postdoctoral researcher in the Biological Control Laboratory. She earned her undergraduate degree from the College of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Zhejiang University, and subsequently completed both her Master’s and Doctorate degrees at the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Osaka University. Her research interests center around cellular biology, gene-environment interactions, and dynamic gene networks.
Yanran Wang
is a postdoctoral researcher in the Biological Control Laboratory. Yanran Wang completed her undergraduate degree in Mathematical Physics at the University of Alberta, Canada, and earned a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Kyoto University, Japan. She is interested in nonlinear dynamical systems and complex networks, with a focus on their applications in biological systems.
Taishi Kotsuka
is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Biological Control Lab. He completed his PhD in Applied Physics and Physical Informatics at Keio University, working with Professor Yutaka Hori. His research interests lie in the integration of control engineering and synthetic biology. He especially is interested in developing novel control theory methods for the analysis and design of molecular communication systems composed of bacteria and molecular robots. He also works on analysis for stochastic behavior of biomolecular reactions.
Jamiree Harrison
is a 5th year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include mathematical modeling, machine learning, synthetic biology, dynamical systems, and control.
Charles Johnson
is a 5th year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include dynamic systems, control theory, mathematical modeling and system identification.
Aleczander Taylor
is a 4th year PhD student in the Mechanical Engineering program. His research interests are in synthetic biology, systems biology, protein engineering, and data science.
Harris Clark
is an 3rd year undergraduate student at UCSB pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering. He is examining the effect of CRIPSRi on gene transcription and supercoiling using deterministic and stochastic modeling approaches.
Harnoor Lal
Harnoor Lal is a Masters student in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are in machine learning, controls, and computational engineering, with a focus on interpretability and efficiency.
Daniel Park
is a Masters student in Mechanical Engineering. He is developing biotechnology to enact temporal encodings using a suite of genetic sensors developed by Aqib Hasnain, Shara Balakrishnan, Dennis Joshy, Steve Haase and Jen Smith.
Annie Nguyen
is a 1st year Masters student in Mechanical Engineering with a Bioengineering and Systems Biology focus. Her interests lie in bacterial and viral pathogenesis and the discovery of their respective pharmaceutical therapies. She is currently working in the Biological Control Lab under supervision of Dr. Yeung to observe how cell fate of bacteria is altered as a result of gene refactoring within specific gene clusters or pathogenicity islands.
Claire Kuykendall
is a junior research associate and a 2024 graduate in Cellular and Developmental Biology. Her research interests are in genetics, synthetic biology, genetic engineering, and systems biology. She is currently working on a project investigating translational control by targeting mRNA using the deactivated CRISPR-CasRx system with PhD student Alec Taylor.
Yizhuo Yin
is a 3rd year PhD student in Chemistry and Biochemistry. His research interests include molecular biology, biophysics, mathematical modeling, machine learning, dynamical systems, and control.
Bahareh Dehghan Banadaki
is a 2nd year PhD student in Mechanical Engineering, specializing in Bioengineering and Systems Biology (BESB).
Her primary research interests lie in the fields of systems biology, bioengineering, genetics, bioinformatics, DNA dynamics, and Next Generation Sequencing. She has previously served as a medical genetic lab lead, molecular biologist and principal researcher. Her overarching objective is to leverage the integration of technology and biological science to develop scientifically rigorous, innovative, and cost-effective biological strategies aimed at enhancing the quality of life, disease management, advancing personalized medicine, and gaining control over natural phenomena that remain beyond human influence.
Austin Chen
is a second year Electrical Engineering major. His interests are in synthetic biology and mathematical modeling. He is currently working under Dr. Yeung on developing more robust genetic circuits with a hysteretic behavior.
Kevin Chang
is a 3rd year undergraduate student at UCSB pursuing a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His interests are in computational biology, synthetic biology, bioengineering, applied mathematics, and machine learning. In the future, he hopes to pursue graduate education in a similar area.
Jiayi Wu
is a third year undergraduate student at UCSB pursuing a degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Her interests include synthetic biology, molecular bioloogy and immunobiology. She is currently working on building a genetic circuit that can approximate square waves. Jiayi is co-mentored by Professor Arnab Mukherjee in the Bioengineering Department.
Jai Mehra
is a senior majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His research interests lie in genetic regulation and protein engineering. He is currently working with PhD student Jamiree Harrison to develop hybrid promoter sequences to allow gene transcription during both logarithmic and stationary phases of bacterial growth cycles.
Paige Nickerson
is a second year Biology major. She is assisting Claire Kuykendall, a senior undergraduate researcher, in researching how nucleoid associated proteins alter the temporal dynamics of transcription and DNA compaction.
Lab Alumni
Chris Muray
graduated with a B.S. in physics in 2024 at UCSB. He began research in the Pruitt Lab, writing video processing scripts to analyze beating cardiomyocyte nuclear geometry. While working in the Biological Control Lab, he worked on a stochastic model of DNA supercoiling for different compositional contexts. He hopes to pursue a Masters degree in computer science to explore machine learning and computing for scientific applications.
Gabrielle Nemeh
graduated with a B.S. in pharmacology in June of 2024 from UCSB. While in the Biological Control Lab, she researched new methods for long-range PCR amplification for the purpose of studying how drug dosages affect DNA structure and visualizing the effects drugs have on DNA supercoiling under the direction of Dr. Yeung. She is currently pursuing a Masters degree at UC San Diego and continues exploring pharmaceutical science.
Linus Rydell
graduated with his Bachelor’s degree majoring in Mechanical Engineering with University Honors in June 2023. While in the Biological Control Lab, he worked with Aqib Hasnain to discover a novel fingerprinting method for synthetic gene circuits in living cells. His capstone team designed a surgical device to improve spinal surgery, eventually receiving the top prize at the Annual Design Showcase in Mechanical Engineering. He will be pursuing a Master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from UCSB starting Fall of 2023.
Michael Zheng
graduated with his Bachelor’s degree double majoring in Statistics and Biochemistry in June 2023. While in the Biological Control Lab, he worked with Aleczander Taylor and Claire Kuykendall to develop a functional variant of CRISPR for RNA regulation. He will be pursuing a Master’s degree in Computational Biology from Carnegie Mellon University starting Fall of 2023.
Aqib Hasnain
graduated with his PhD in Mechanical Engineering in June 2023. While in the Biological Control Lab, he pursued research in synthetic biology, computational biology, machine learning, and modeling Koopman operators. After his PhD, he accepted a postdoctoral scholar position at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab working with Dr. Dawn Chiniquy, before transitioning to a lead chief scientist role in the biotech and AI/bioinformatics startup Mithrl.
Shara Rhagha Wardhan Balakrishnan
earned his PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering in June 2023. While in the Biological Control Lab, he developed new methods for decomposing nonlinear observable subspaces, using Koopman operator methods. He explored the application of these new methods for adjusting biomass and growth rate of Pseudomonads, using CRISPRi controllers. He is now the Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Mithrl (AviAI).
Ines Bilkic
graduated in 2022 with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering. While in the Biological Control Lab, she worked on projects relating to pathogenesis and genome integration. After graduation, she pursued a full time position at FM Global as a consultant engineer.
Yi Ling Yang
Yi Ling graduated in 2021 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. After graduation, she pursued a position in biotechnology . While in the Biological Control Lab, she researched new methods for producing anthocyanin compounds on bio-enhanced surfaces.
Jackson Bright
graduated in 2021 in with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. His interests are in design and sustainability. While in the lab, he developed and optimized chemical assays for degradation of byproducts associated with plastic breakdown.
Alex Nguyen
Alex graduated in 2019 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is now pursuing a PhD in controls at UC Irvine. While in the Biological Control Lab, he researched new methods for synthesis of genetics circuits for nonlinear biological systems.
Andy Cai
graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering. He also was a junior research associate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His background was in design, fabrication, and all things mechanical engineering. He worked on optimization of genetic circuits for nutrient-sparse environments.
Nibodh Boddupalli
Nibodh graduated with a Master’s Degree student in Mechanical Engineering. He is currently pursuing a PhD with a focus in dynamics and controls in UCSB’s Mechanical Engineering department with Professor Jeff Moehlis. His research interests include theory and application of Koopman operator methods, system identification, design of experiments, and data-responsive machine learning models.
Dennis M Joshy
is a PhD student in Mechanical Engineering. His research interests include fluid mechanics, mechanobiology, and bioengineering. While in the Biological Control Lab, he studied how DNA integration in the genome affects neighboring gene transcription. He also developed a tool to design circuits from sketches of their dynamical behavior: Sketch-A-Net. He currently is a scientist at the startup Regeneron.
Olivia Simon
was a Dos Pueblos High School student. She is currently attending Northeastern University, majoring in Cell and Molecular Biology. She has a passion for studying the biological systems of life and has worked on a few projects in bioengineering at UCSB in the Biological Control Lab. She studied the adaptive metabolism of Acinetobacter baylyi using sugar titrations in hopes of understanding adaptation mechanisms in Acinetobacter baumannii. She also worked on building a set of magnetic tweezers to study DNA supercoiling, as well as learning to clone plasmid DNA using PCR and Golden gate processes. In the future, she would like to combine genetics, molecular biology, and marine science to work towards hopefully saving coral reefs from climate change.
Annelise Fuhrer
Annelise is a graduating senior at Dos Pueblos High School and plans to study biochemistry at Northeastern University. Her research interests include synthetic biology, CRISPR, drug development, and drug delivery.
