Nils was formerly a member of the academic research staff as part of the Criddle-lab at Stanford University. For CUBES he is developing microbial cell factories that convert C1-carbons into high-performance polymers that can serve as materials for consumables and durable goods. He is also an Analog Astronaut, demonstrating biomanufacturing capabilities in the field (at a Space Exploration Analog and Simulation Habitat), as a proving ground for Mars. Will join University of Florida as assistant professor.

Amor Menezes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida. He is the Science Principal Investigator of the five-year, multi-university, Center for the Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space (CUBES), a NASA Space Technology Research Institute in biomanufacturing for deep space exploration. He also leads the Systems Design and Integration Division of CUBES.

Dr. Menezes' research interests are in dynamical systems theory and control, with applications to the fields of systems biology and synthetic biology. He is an IEEE Senior Member. He was a 2015 Emerging Leader in Biosecurity and a 2015 fellow of the Synthetic Biology Leadership Excellence Accelerator Program.

He was an Associate Project Scientist in the California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3) at the University of California, Berkeley from 2016 to 2017, and a QB3 Postdoctoral Scholar from 2011 to 2016. He was a Research Fellow between 2010 and 2011 in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Michigan, where he received a Ph.D. as an NSERC Post-Graduate Scholar and Michigan Teaching Fellow in 2010, and a Master of Science in Engineering as a Milo E. Oliphant Fellow in 2006. He graduated from the University of Waterloo in 2005 with a Bachelor of Applied Science in Mechanical Engineering with Distinction, Dean's Honors (top 10%), and the Sandford Fleming Co-op Medal.

Jackson is primarily interested in the discovery and creation of novel biological systems that can be used in faucets of bioremediation, human health, and space exploration. He has researched bacteriophages in depth, has discovered and annotated novel phages, and has investigated bacteriophage mechanisms of lysis. He has also done bioinformatics work regarding intrinsic disorder in Merkel Cell Polyomavirus and has explored HECTD3's involvement in cancer. He is a proponent of undergraduate research and learning and has developed a program to certify undergraduates in basic lab techniques to better prepare them for academic research. Currently, he is pursuing a PhD at UF and is teaching, taking courses, and working with Dr. Averesch researching bioplastic production.
 

Angela received a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Florida in 2021. She is currently a graduate student in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Florida where she works with Dr. Amor Menezes. Her work in CUBES is in the area of food and pharmaceutical synthesis and includes modeling of plant-based production of biologics in space as well as AI-based control of environmental conditions to maximize food production.

Wienke is a graduate student in the Bioscience Engineering program at Ghent University, specializing in biochemistry and biotechnology. Currently, she is a visiting student intern at the University of Florida, collaborating with Dr. Nils Averesh on microbial physiology and metabolic engineering, with a particular focus on carbon metabolism and biopolymer synthesis.
Her ongoing research, a collaboration with Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and the European Space Agency (ESA), investigates the effects of microgravity on gene expression patterns in intervertebral discs (IVD), offering insights into cellular adaptation in space environments.

Previously, Wienke worked on projects involving the engineering of advanced enzybiotics as next-generation antimicrobial agents, employing molecular biology techniques to develop effective treatments. She has also focused on enzyme immobilization, using concanavalin A to create carriers for β-galactosidase, and contributed to the development of designer cellulosomes for biofuel production by optimizing enzyme cascades for efficient biomass degradation.

Alex is a second year Aerospace Engineering student at the University of Florida. He is working under Dr. Amor Menezes in the Systems Design and Integration division. He has been a member of CUBES since November 2018. He is interested optimizing mission parameters to minimize mission costs and increase viability. His work at the University of Florida also includes the applications of model-free control to space missions.

Saige is a fourth year at the University of Florida studying Aerospace Engineering. She is working with Dr. Amor Menezes under the Systems Design and Integration division. She is interested in the effects of space travel on biological systems and using alternative solutions to mitigate problems cause by long term missions.

Jithran Ekanayake grew up in Sri Lanka and moved to the United States in 2016 to study biology at Carleton College, MN on a Starr Foundation scholarship. He is now a graduate student in the Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering at the University of Florida, where he works with Dr. Amor Menezes and the Systems Design and Integration Division of CUBES to develop experimentally-validated models of space biomanufacturing processes in low-shear modeled microgravity.

Outside of space synthetic biology, he is interested in pararescue, resilience education, and how space exploration could function as a propellant for the peaceful unification of people and nations across the globe.

Soumyajit Sen Gupta has been a member of the SDID division of the CUBES since March 2018. Prior to joining the CUBES as a post doctoral research associate with Dr. Amor Menezes, he was a doctoral research scholar at Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay since 2012. His doctoral thesis was on integrated plant-wide optimization of microalgae biorefinery, co-producing fuel, food and chemicals. He is a Bachelors' (2010 batch) from Jadavpur University and Masters' (2012 batch) from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; both these degrees have been in the discipline of Chemical Engineering. His research interests are in the area of systems design, modeling and optimization, renewable energy and process systems engineering.
 

Alexander Kamentz is a 2nd year Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering in the SYBORGS Lab under Amor Menezes at the University of Florida. He received his B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida in 2019. His research interest is focused around stochastic control theory in the SDID division of CUBES.

Anya is a graduate student at the University of Florida getting her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering with Professor Menezes. Her interests include the application of synthetic biology for medical use in space to better support human space exploration.

Prior to the University of Florida, she received her B.S. in Biomedical Engineering at Columbia University in New York City, where she also competed as the Payload Lead on the university’s rockets team. There, Anya also worked on developing microfluidic devices for cancer diagnostics.

She is originally from Fort Lauderdale, Florida and in her spare time enjoys painting and arts and crafts!