Erika Alden DeBenedictis
Erika Alden DeBenedictis

Erika Alden DeBenedictis

I’m a computational physicist and molecular biologist. I’m interested in solving big problems using evolution.

I received a PhD in Biological Engineering from MIT in 2021 and a BS in Computer Science from Caltech in 2014. I did a postdoc in David Baker’s Lab, where I worked on machine learning for protein design. I’ve also worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), Sandia National Laboratories, Dropbox, and D. E. Shaw Research.

Top of the mind: A essay I wrote about the future of predictive models in biology, a podcast where I talk about starting a lab, and a good rundown of my past projects.


 

Most recently

 
 
 
 

The Biodesign Laboratory

I run an academic lab at the Francis Crick Institute in London, UK. We use Robotics-Accelerated Evolution to push the limits of biotech for use on Earth and in Space.

 
 
 

Align to Innovate

I founded Align to Innovate, a nonprofit on a mission to improve life science research through programmable experiments. Our first program was the Bioautomation Challenge, a grant program that offers academics access to fully-programmable cloud labs.