Orion joined the Adamala lab in early 2019; since then, they have focused on the development of tools for synthetic cell engineering, rational RNA design, and using those synthetic biology techniques to elucidate viroid and plastid evolution. Orion joined the BMBB department as a PhD student in 2022.

Judee received her B.S. in Microbial Biology from the University of California, Berkeley in 2014. Although she did do research in her undergraduate years, she didn’t find her true interest in environmental microbiology and its applications until she began researching at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and start-up companies like Pivot Bio and Wild Earth. In 2018, she made the move to the University of Minnesota’s graduate program in Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics where she joined the Adamala-Engelhart Lab. She is interested in furthering the functionality of synthetic cells for use in environmental biotechnology applications. Likewise, she would like to use synthetic cell mechanisms to consider (or reconsider) the origins of life on Earth or potentially in extraterrestrial systems. When she’s not in lab, she likes to read, watch The Office, backpack, and drink beer.

Contact: sharo112@umn.edu