Eric Young

Eric Young is the Leonard P. Kinnicutt Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. His research objective is to understand and engineer novel microbial systems that improve the human condition, focusing primarily on fungi. Because synthetic biology is so underdeveloped in these organisms, Young and his collaborators are addressing multiple areas of need – genetic design aids, methods development, genomics data acquisition and workflows, modular parts collections, and pathway engineering. In recognition and support of these efforts, Dr. Young received a 2019 NSF CAREER award and a 2019 Massachusetts Life Sciences Center Building Breakthroughs award. Dr. Young received undergraduate degrees in Chemical Engineering and Biological Engineering from the University of Maine at Orono. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow. He completed postdoctoral research at MIT, contributing to the development of the MIT-Broad Foundry.