News

April 2021: Sarah Coleman has been awarded the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations Sarah!

July 2020: Lauren Cordova has successfully defended her thesis entitled "Teaching Yarrowia lipolytica new tricks: Overproducing new oleochemicals and valorizing Hydrothermal Liquefaction Aqueous Phase". Congratulations, Lauren!

February 2020: Lauren Cordova has won the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering Research Award at GAIN 2020 for her poster titled "Direct production of fatty alcohols from glucose using engineered strains of Yarrowia lipolytica" Congratulations, Lauren!

October 2019: The Alper group welcomes Sarah Coleman, Sierra Brooks, Angela Gordillo Sierra, and Celeste Marsan, graduate students in Chemical Engineering, to the group!

October 2019: The Alper group welcomes Lichao Sun, a visiting assistant professor from Institute of Food Science and Technology CAAS, to the group!

August 2019: The Alper group welcomes Carla Maneira da Silva, a visiting scholar from State University of Campinas, to the group!

July 2019: Matthew Deaner has successfully defended his thesis entitled "The Development of Generalizable Methods for Rapid Optimization of Metabolic Pathways in Yeast using CRISPR/Cas9". Congratulations, Matt!

July 2019: Haibo Li has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Biochemical production by Yarrowia lipolytica from Xylose". Congratulations, Haibo!

July 2019 The Alper group welcomes Hong Lu, a postdoctoral researcher from City University of Hong Kong, to the group!

June 2019 Kevin won the 1st and 3rd year ChemE Seminar Series Competition! And Kristin got runner-up! Congrats guys!

May 2019: The Alper group welcomes Emily Bowman, graduate student in Biochemistry, and Hannah Cole, graduate student in Biochemistry (co-advised by Dr. Ellington), to the group!

May 2019: James Wagner has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Enhancing Secreted Production from Yeast Species with High Throughput Microdroplet Screening Methods". Congratulations, James!

April 2019: Maya Venkataraman and Holly Ekas have both been awarded the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship as undergraduates. Congratulations Maya and Holly!

April 2019: Matthew Deaner has won the Microbial Genomics-sponsored poster prize at the DOE Joint Genome Institute 14th Annual Genomics of Energy and Environment Meeting with a poster entitled "Systematic Testing of Gene Sensitivities in Yeast via an sgRNA Library Approach". Congratulations, Matt!

March 2019: The Alper group welcomes Ruiqi Tang, a visiting scholar from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, to the group!

February 2019: Kevin Reed has won the UT Austin 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition for his talk entitled "Brewing Better Antibiotics Using Yeast." He was invited to attend the regional competition in Knoxville, TN. Congratulations, Kevin!

February 2019: Kevin Reed has won the McKetta Department of Chemical Engineering Research Award at GAIN 2019 for his poster entitled "Protein engineering in yeast to enable ionic liquid resistance for value-added biochemical production from biomass." Congratulations, Kevin!

November 2018: Allison Holzman has won third place at the 2018 Undergraduate Poster Competition at the AIChE Annual Meeting with a poster entitled "Multiplexed CRISPR-dCas9 Regulation of Metabolic Pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Congratulations, Allison!

November 2018: Holly Ekas has won first place at the 2018 Undergraduate Poster Competition at the AIChE Annual Meeting with a poster entitled "CRISPR-PIN: Modifying gene position in the nucleus via dCas9-mediated tethering". Congratulations, Holly!

August 2018: Nick Morse has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Generalizable Approaches for Gene Expression Regulation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Congratulations, Nick!

August 2018: Kelly Markham has successfully defended her thesis entitled "Expanding the Product Portfolio of Yarrowia lipolytica through Metabolic Engineering and Synthetic Biology Tool Development". Congratulations, Kelly!

July 2018 The Alper group welcomes Kelly Miller, a postdoctoral researcher from Michigan State University to the group!

May 2018 The Alper group welcomes Xiunan Yi, graduate student in Microbiology to the group!

April 2018: Kristin Presnell and Kevin Reed have both been awarded the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations Kristin and Kevin!

September 2017: Lauren Cordova passed her Preliminary Thesis Proposal! Congrats Lauren!

May 2017: James won the 1st and 3rd year ChemE Seminar Series Competition! And Matt got runner-up! Congrats guys!

May 2017: The Alper group welcomes Shuo-Fu Yuan, graduate student in Biochemistry, and Simon d'Oelsnitz, graduate student in Cellular and Molecular Biology (co-advised by Dr. Ellington), to the group!

April 2017: Claire Palmer has passed her preliminary oral exam! Congrats Claire!

January 2017: Madeleine Flexer Harrison has earned her Masters in Molecular Biology! Congrats Madeleine!

December 2016: The "Z" in Zero are Austin SCC Fall 2016 Dodgeball Champions! Congrats, Joe, Matt, Kelly, James, and Nick!

December 2016: Joseph Cheng has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Beyond protein factories: Expanding the synthetic biology toolkit for engineering mammalian hosts". Congratulations, Joseph!

December 2016: Joe Abatemarco has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Novel Approaches for the Evolutionary Engineering of Pathways in Saccharomyces cerevisiae". Congratulations, Joe!

November 2016: The Alper group is pleased to announce that James Wagner has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations James!

November 2016: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Matt Deaner has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Matt!

October 2016: The Alper group welcomes Kristin Presnell and Kevin Reed, graduate students in Chemical Engineering, to the group!

June 2016: John Leavitt has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Engineering and evolution of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for muconic acid production". Congratulations, John!

May 2016: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Nicholas Morse has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Nick!

May 2016: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Kelly Markham has passed her preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Kelly!

May 2016: The Alper group welcomes Claire Palmer, graduate student in Cellular and Moleculer Biology, to the group!

April 2016: Matthew Deaner has been awarded the prestigious NDSEG Fellowship! Congratulations!

October 2015: The Alper group welcomes Lauren Cordova, graduate student in Chemical Engineering, to the group!

June 2015: The Alper group welcomes Madeleine Flexer Harrison, graduate student in Molecular Biology, to the group!

April 2015: James Wagner has been awarded the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations James!

April 2015: Nicholas Morse has been awarded the NDSEG Fellowship! Congratulations!

December 2014: Leqian Liu has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Engineering Yarrowia lipolytica for high lipid production". Congratulations, Leqian!

November 2014: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Andrew Hill has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Andrew!

November 2014: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Joe Abatemcaro has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Joe!

October 2014: The Alper group welcomes Matt Deaner and James Wagner, graduate students in Chemical Engineering, to the group.

August 2014: Sun-mi Lee has successfully defended her thesis entitled "Combinatorial engineering of Saccharomyces cerevisiae for efficient pentose catabolism". Congratulations, Sun-mi!

June 2014: Hal Alper has been awarded the Jay Bailey Young Investigator Award in Metabolic Engineering. Congratulations, Hal!

May 2014: The Alper group welcomes Haibo Li, graduate student in Microbiology, to the group.

April 2014: Hal Alper has been selected as a 2014 Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar. Congratulations, Hal!

April 2014: Nathan Crook has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Novel Approaches for Metabolic Engineering of Yeast at Multiple Scales". Congratulations, Nathan!

April 2014: Kate Curran has successfully defended her thesis entitled "Optimizing Gene Expression in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for Metabolic Engineering Applications". Congratulations, Kate!

April 2014: Allison Wagman has won first prize in the underclassman division of the Cockrell School of Engineering Poster Exhibition with a poster entitled "Yeast Promoter Mutations Modeled by Nucleosome Affinity". Congratulations, Allison!

December 2013: Hal Alper has been promoted to Associate Professor with tenure, effective September 1, 2014. Congratulations, Hal!

December 2013: Mariam Jamoussi has won first prize at the Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Research Poster Competition with a poster entitled "Itaconic Acid Production in Yarrowia lipolytica". Congratulations, Mariam!

November 2013: Annie Pan has won first prize at the 2013 Undergraduate Poster Competition at the AIChE Annual Meeting with a poster entitled "Metabolic Engineering of the Yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, for Itaconic Acid Production". Congratulations, Annie!

October 2013: The Alper group welcomes Kelly Markham and Nicholas Morse, graduate students in Chemical Engineering, to the group.

July 2013: John Blazeck has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Harnessing Yarrowia lipolytica’s Potential as a Lipid and Alkane Production Platform" Congratulations, Johnny!

July 2013: Eric Young has successfully defended his thesis entitled "Transporter Engineering as a Tool for Metabolic Engineering" Congratulations, Eric!

May 2013: Annie Pan has won first place at the Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Research Poster Competition! Congratulations, Annie!

May 2013: Do Soon Kim has won third place at the Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Research Poster Competition! Congratulations, Do Soon!

April 2013: Amanda Lanza has successfully defended her thesis entitled "Novel Tools for Engineering Eukaryotic Cells Using a Systems Level Approach" Congratulations, Amanda!

February 2013: Kate Curran has won the John J. McKetta Chemical Engineering Award for Excellence in Research for a poster entitled "Metabolic Engineering of Muconic Acid Production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae" Congratulations, Kate!

November 2012: The Alper group welcomes Dr. Jie Sun, Postdoctoral Scholar from East China University of Science and Technology, to the group.

October 2012: Ashty Karim has won 3rd place in the Undergraduate Poster Competition at the 2012 AIChE Annual Meeting with a poster entitled "Characterization of plasmid burden and copy number in Saccharomyces cerevisiae for optimization of metabolic engineering applications." Congratulations, Ashty!

October 2012: Amanda Lanza has won the 2012 Proctor and Gamble Seminar Competition for a talk entitled “Developing New Biotechnology Tools for Understanding and Engineering Cellular Hosts.” Congratulations, Amanda!

October 2012: The Alper group welcomes Joe Abatemarco, graduate student in Chemical Engineering, to the group.

September 2012: The Alper group welcomes Andrew Hill, graduate student in Chemical Engineering, to the group.

June 2012: Amanda Lanza has won the top overall student/young investigator poster award sponsored by Metabolic Engineering journal at the Metabolic Engineering IX conference in Biarritz, France. Congratulations, Amanda!

May 2012: The Alper group welcomes Heidi Redden, graduate student in Biochemistry, to the group.

May 2012: Amanda Lanza has been selected as a recipient of the Jeff Byers Memorial Graduate Award in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering. Congratulations, Amanda!

April 2012: Ashty Karim has won the Cockerell School of Engineering Undergraduate Research Poster Competition! Congratulations, Ashty!

April 2012: Amanda Lanza has been selected as a recipient of the P. E. O. Scholar Award. Congratulations, Amanda!

April 2012: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Sun-mi Lee has passed her preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Sun-mi!

March 2012: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Nathan Crook and Kate Curran have passed their preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Nathan and Kate!

November 2011: Austin Comer has won the Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Research Poster Competition! Congratulations, Austin!

October 2011: The Alper group welcomes Joseph Cheng, graduate student in Chemical Engineering, to the group.

July 2011: Amanda Lanza has been awarded the prestigious Donald D. Harrington Dissertation Fellowship. Congratulations Amanda!

June 2011: The Alper group is pleased to announce that John Blazeck has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Johnny!

May 2011: The Alper group congratulates Ben Reed on graduating with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and wishes him the best at the Georgia Institute of Technology

May 2011: The Alper group congratulates Ashley Poucher on graduating with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and wishes her the best at Exxon Mobil.

May 2011: The Alper group welcomes John Leavitt, graduate student in Cell and Molecular Biology, to the group.

May 2011: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Eric Young has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Eric!

May 2011: The Alper group is pleased to announce that Leqian Liu has passed his preliminary oral exam. Congratulations Leqian!

May 2010: The Alper group congratulates Wenly Ruan on graduating with a B.S. in Biology and wishes her the best at UT Southwestern Medical School.

May 2010: The Alper group welcomes Leqian Liu, graduate student in Biochemistry, to the group.

April 2010: Nathan Crook, Kate Moran, and Eric Young have been awarded the prestigious NSF Graduate Fellowship. Congratulations!

October 2009: The Alper group welcomes Nathan Crook, Kate Moran, and Sun-mi Lee, graduate students in Chemical Engineering, to the group.

October 2008: The Alper group welcomes Johnny Blazeck, Amanda Lanza, and Eric Young, graduate students in Chemical Engineering, to the group.