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Review the candidate bios before the upcoming SIMB 2024 Board of Directors election

Published on: February 20, 2024​

SIMB Election Info

The SIMB Election for positions on the Board of Directors will commence March 1, 2024. The election will close at noon EDT on March 31, 2024, and members must join/renew by noon EDT, March 29, 2024, to be eligible to vote. Current members for 2024 will receive login instructions for accessing the voting module

Results will be published on the SIMB website and in SIMB News.

Student members are not eligible to vote.

Candidates for President-Elect


Raj Boopathy
Nicholls State University
Dr. Raj Boopathy is an Alcee Fortier Distinguished Service Professor of biological sciences at the Nicholls State University, USA. He received the Jerry Ledet Foundation Endowed Professorship in Environmental Biology in 2002 and John Brady Endowed Professorship in 2012. Dr. Boopathy has more than 30 years of research experience in the area of bioremediation and bio-processing. His research involves bioremediation of hazardous chemicals including oil spills and explosives, biological treatment of wastewater, antibiotic resistance genes in the environment, and bio-ethanol production. He has published more than 200 research papers in peer- reviewed journals and 22 book chapters. His research work has been cited more than 11,000 times. He is the editor of the journal, Bioengineered, Environmental Quality Management, Current Pollution Reports, Applied Nano, and Applied Sciences (Section, Environmental and Sustainable Science and Technology). He also serves as a senior editor of the Journal, Renewable Bioresources and is on the Editorial Boards of various journals including International Biodeterioration & Biodegradation, Bioresource Technology, and the International Journal of Soil and Sediment Contamination. Dr. Boopathy received Fulbright scholarship and spent six months teaching and conducting research at the Institute of Technology (ITB) in Bandung, Indonesia in 2007. He also received European Union-US biotechnology Fellowship and Leverhulme commonwealth fellowship. He has been elected as a Fellow of various societies including International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, SIMB, and the International Forum on Bioprocessing. Dr Boopathy was selected as a Fulbright Senior Scholar Specialist to visit various countries for next five years by the US State Department and he recently visited Malaysia and Indonesia as a Fulbright Specialist. Dr. Boopathy is the recipient of the World Class Professor (WCP) award from the Government of Indonesia. Dr. Boopathy received Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to Bioprocessing Research by the International Bioprocessing Association (IBA). Dr. Boopathy recently received the University of Louisiana (UL) System’s Outstanding Faculty Award for the year 2023. Dr. Boopathy is a visiting professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Technology Bandung (ITB) Indonesia.

Selected SIMB Activities and Services:

  • SIMB Annual Meeting Program committee member (2015 to 2018), Session Convener, (2016-2018) Chair for Environmental topic area (2018)
  • Chair of Awards and Honors Committee (2020-2023) and current member
  • Elected as SIMB Fellow in 2016
  • Received Waksman Award in 2017
  • Reviewed Research Papers and Guest Editor of the Special Issue of Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology in 2019.

If I am elected as SIMB President, I will focus my energy on increasing the SIMB membership at all levels and enhance our society’s visibility in Asian and South American countries. I am dedicated to SIMB and it would be a great honor to serve as its President.


Rob Donofrio
Neogen
I am honored and humbled to be considered for the position of President of the Society for Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology. SIMB has helped shape who I am as a scientist and professional. During my 25+ years of membership I have volunteered for many roles: poster presenter; session speaker; poster session judge; session organizer; conference planning committee; program chair of Recent Advances in Microbial Control; SIMB Board of Directors (two terms as Secretary and one as Director); currently serving on Corporate Affairs Committee. Each experience offered insight into the inner workings of SIMB and provided me with a genuine appreciation of the effort, collaborative spirit, and passion of my fellow members. My doctoral mentor at Michigan Technological University Dr. Susan Bagley (past SIMB president and all-around great person) instilled in me the mindset of servant leadership and the importance of volunteering. SIMB is truly a Society where everyone can (and should) get involved.

I currently hold the position of Chief Scientific Officer at Neogen where I am responsible for the global R&D strategic vision and coordination of product development activities for the 100+ scientists and researchers in our Food Safety, Animal Safety and Genomics divisions. Prior to Neogen, I held multiple roles at NSF International over my 16-year tenure (Director of Microbiology, Director of the Applied Research Center). My additional board and advisory commitments include AOAC’s Global Council, IFPA Food Safety Council, NIAMRRE Advisory Council, and the MichBio Board of Directors.

As President I would look to expand on initiatives enacted by my predecessors as well as address emerging fields that impact SIMB stakeholders. My vision is as follows:

  1. 1. Plan for long term sustainment and growth of SIMB
    • a. Continue strategic planning initiative
    • b. Emphasize adherence to core values while being fiscally responsible
      • Ensure that SIMB remains the premiere industrial microbiology society
      • Ensure that SIMB continues to promote a diverse, equitable and inclusive culture
    • c. Evaluation of society partnerships that align with core values and scientific focus
  2. 2. Increase industry participation to drive corporate membership / sponsorship
    • a. Establish connections with corporate decision makers and define the membership value add
    • b. Evaluate best practices for industry engagement by other societies and trade associations
    • c. Engage adjacent industry targets for potential membership
  3. 3. Expand recruitment of emerging scientists
    • a. Mentorship engagement
    • b. Develop SIMB emerging scientist support/development group
    • c. Social media campaigns to raise awareness of Society meetings and local scientific gatherings
  4. 4. Establish Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
    • a. Purpose of the AI Committee would be to provide guidance in governance, IP strategy and technology integration

Thank you for your consideration and I look forward the opportunity to serve you

Candidates for Secretary


Mark Blenner
University of Delaware
Dr. Blenner is the Thomas & Kipp Gutshall Career Development Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. Prior to that, he was the McQueen Quattlebaum Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Clemson University. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from Manhattan College in 2004, and his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University in 2009. After that he completed three years of postdoctoral training as an American Heart Association Postdoctoral Fellow and an NIH NRSA Postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston.

Mark’s research interests include metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, biocatalysis, natural products, biomanufacturing, and microbial community engineering – which aligns perfectly with SIMB’s focus. His research is broadly focused on engineering biomolecular and cellular systems to produce fuels, chemicals, enzymes, biopharmaceuticals and biosensors. He is interested in the use of synthetic biology in environments outside of the lab. He works in various non-model and non-conventional hosts, including several oleaginous yeast, and natural bacterial isolates. His work has been recognized by the community through several awards including the 2022 AIChE Food, Pharmaceutical, and Bioengineering Division Early Career Award, the 2022 Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the 2021 ACS BIOT Young Investigator Award, and the 2019 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE). Mark has been actively involved in SIMB since 2015. He has chaired numerous technical sessions and participated in many of SIMB’s meeting. He was the program chair for the 2022 Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA, and has served in other SIMB leadership roles. In 2020, he was a member of the Nominating Committee. In 2022 he became a member of the Education Committee, and in 2023 he joined the Webinar committee. Mark excited to make a greater commitment to the society working with the Board of Directors and the Executive Director to ensure SIMB continues to provide incredible value for its members and the community at large.


Ian Wheeldon
University of California, Riverside
I am a Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and the Director of UCR’s Center for Industrial Biotechnology. My research group develops new systems and synthetic biology approaches to engineer microorganisms for renewable bioprocesses. I have been a member of SIMB since 2014, serving as a session chair in 2022. To this position I also bring executive committee experience as the Chair of the Food, Pharmaceuticals and Bioengineering Division of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, an organization that has shared goals with SIMB. My group and I have benefited from the microbiology and bioprocessing community of SIMB, its interdisciplinary nature, and focus on both applied and fundamental research. As secretary my goals are to enable broader access to the society and engage new members.

Dr. Wheeldon is a Professor of Chemical and Environmental Engineering and the Director of the Center for Industrial Biotechnology at the University of California, Riverside. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from Columbia University in 2009 and completed two years of postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Dr. Wheeldon received a Master’s of Applied Science from the Royal Military College of Canada (2003), and a Bachelor’s of Applied Science (1999) from Queen’s University, Canada. His research is focused on synthetic biology for chemical synthesis.

Candidates for Director


Aindrila Mukhopadhyay
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Dr. Mukhopadhyay is a Senior Scientist in the Biological Systems and Engineering Division at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in Berkeley, CA. She received a master’s in chemistry from the Indian Institute of Technology in, Mumbai, India in 1996 and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL in 2002. She did her postdoctoral research at UC Berkeley and LBNL. Currently, she is the principal investigator of her team that is part of several large interdisciplinary projects, mainly focused on engineered and environmental microbial systems. She is the Vice President of the Biofuels and Bioproducts Division at the Department of Energy funded, Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI) and is also the Director of its Host Engineering group. As part of JBEI her group develops tools to examine and engineer a variety of microbial platforms including Pseudomonas putida, Corynebacterium glutamicum, Escherichia coli, Rhodosporidium toruloides, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and several other microbial strains. She uses a range of functional genomics, metabolic modeling, and systems biology approaches to address bottlenecks in microbial strain engineering. Her group specifically focuses on developing robust strains that show high tolerance and productivity during biofuel and chemical production, and the optimization required to achieve scalability. Dr. Mukhopadhyay has been an active member of SIMB in the past few years as a speaker and a convener in several SIMB meetings. In 2023 she served as the program chair for the SIMB Annual meeting held in Minneapolis, MN. The meeting drew over 500 participants across industry, national laboratories and academia and covered a vibrant range of research topics across numerous microbiology topics.


Jonathan Sheridan
Psomagen
My experience in commercializing life science technologies spans 30+ years. I started my career at Monsanto in laboratory operations in the Corporate Research and Development Group under Ernie Jaworski. From there, I moved into the commercial aspect of biotech with the original Perkin Elmer Cetus team that was first launching PCR in the Midwest. I have successfully held commercial and executive leadership positions with several life science companies over the past years. My first experience with the industrial biotech market was as CEO of Integrated Genomics in 2008. Since that time, I have been involved with SynBerc through Biomax Informatics and DSM. For the past 5 years, I have volunteered on the SIMB corporate outreach committee, where I have enjoyed working with the SIMB team and its members. I would bring a unique perspective to the board as a non-researcher.