As Hannah Hobbs wraps up her time with the Oliveira Lab, we are excited to recognize the incredible work she has done to strengthen the lab’s experimental infrastructure. Throughout her time with us, Hannah played an important role in expanding our microfluidics capabilities. She developed and documented tubing and flow-routing workflows for microfluidic chips, contributed to new chip designs, and helped establish systems that will support more consistent and accessible experimentation across...

This summer, Jean Choi, a participant in the Draelos Science Scholars Program, joined the Oliveira Lab for an immersive research experience focused on bioreactor development and biotechnology. During her time in the lab, Jean contributed to the development and validation of small-scale bioreactor systems using Pioreactor and Chi.Bio platforms. Her work included assembling hardware, setting up experimental systems, troubleshooting technical issues, and testing components to help ensure...

Nona Hashemi, a Ph.D. candidate in the Oliveira Lab, was selected to receive a travel scholarship to participate in the 2026 BioPACIFIC MIP Summer School at UCLA. During the summer school, Nona participated in scientific presentations, facility tours, technical demonstrations, and networking activities focused on synthetic biology, polymer science, biomaterials, automation, and advanced materials characterization. The program also included joint virtual sessions connecting participants and...

Our team enjoyed presenting posters, sharing our research, and connecting with researchers from the synthetic biology and bio-design automation communities. The conferences provided many valuable opportunities for scientific discussion, feedback, and inspiration. Outside the conference, we also enjoyed exploring the beautiful nature and scenery around Denver. It was a wonderful experience filled with great science, meaningful conversations, and memorable moments!

Nona Hashemi presented work integrating microfluidic physics with agent-based biofilm simulation at the International Workshop on Biodesign Automation. Oliveira Lab Ph.D. candidate Nona Hashemi presented “Constraint-Aware Biofilm Design: Integrating Microfluidic Physics into Agent-Based Modeling for Synthetic Biology” at the International Workshop on Biodesign Automation 2026 (IWBDA 2026) in Boulder, Colorado. Her talk focused on a biofilm-on-chip modeling framework that connects COMSOL-based...

We are pleased to share that our review article, “Engineered bacterial biofilms for biotechnological applications,” is now available online in Trends in Biotechnology. This review highlights how engineered bacterial biofilms can be developed as programmable living platforms for biotechnology. The article discusses how biofilm-associated traits, including adhesion, extracellular matrix formation, spatial organization, and stress tolerance, can be repurposed for applications in bioproduction,...

Four members of the Oliveira Lab presented their latest research at the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC) 2026 Annual Meeting, held on June 2–3, 2026, at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, NC. The meeting brought together researchers from academia, industry, and government to discuss advances in engineering biology and synthetic biology. Poster Presentations: Nona Hashemi presented “Linking Gene Networks to Biofilm Structure and Production Across Species,” Rutuja...

The Oliveira Lab recently visited Dr. Senay Yitbarek and the Hoi Polloi Lab at UNC Chapel Hill as part of a new collaborative effort exploring duckweed growth and morphology. During the visit, our team had the opportunity to learn more about the Hoi Polloi Lab’s experimental systems and discuss how imaging, analysis, and quantitative workflows can support the study of duckweed growth dynamics. The visit opened up exciting conversations around how computational tools can help track...

The Oliveira Lab is excited to highlight the ongoing training of Hannah Hobbs and Jianna Evans as they continue building hands-on experience in the lab. Hannah, a rising senior from Clemson University, and Jianna, an incoming Master's student, are being trained in core lab techniques that support our biofilm research, including culturing bacteria, preparing experiments, and capturing microscopy images. Through this training, they are gaining exposure to both the biological and imaging...

We are thrilled to announce that Prof. Samuel Oliveira has been selected to receive a Director’s Fellowship from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)! This highly competitive continuation grant brings $302K in additional funding to our lab for another year. The Director’s Fellowship is an elite extension granted to only a small subset of top-tier DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) projects across the country. This follows a historic milestone in 2024, when Prof. Oliveira became...