The SSPB Seminar Series was launched in 2024 by the SSPB Graduate Student Association. Students and faculty have the opportunity to suggest speakers each year, and an SSPB-GSA committee issues invitations to potential speakers. The committee aims to balance speakers between the fields of systems, synthetic, and physical biology.

During the 2026-2027 academic year, the SSPB Seminar Series will usually be held on the 2nd Friday of each month at 3:00 pm. Fall seminars will be in Anderson Biological Laboratories (ABL) 131.

Click here to subscribe to the SSPB Seminar Series mailing list.

See below for our developing list of speakers for this year.

2026-27 Speakers

September 11, 2026: Leonidas Bleris, University of Texas at Dallas

October 2026: Anna Konovalova, MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas Health Science Center

November 13, 2026: Cultivarium (applied research lab)

December 4, 2026: Mark Mimee, University of Chicago

January 15, 2027: Brady Cress, University of California, Berkeley

February 12, 2027: Otto Cordero, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

March 12, 2027: Neha Kamat, Northwestern University

April 9, 2027: Harris Wang, Columbia University

May 14, 2027: Vayu Hill-Maini, Stanford University

2025-26 Speakers

August 2025: Qing Sun, Texas A&M University

September 2025: Kathryn Brink, BioMADE (Bioindustrial Manufacturing and Design Ecosystem)

October 2025: Chad Johnston, Baylor College of Medicine

November 2025: Greg Lohman, New England Biolabs

December 2025: Farren Isaacs, Yale University

January 2026: Kaiyi Jiang, Princeton University

February 2026: Aditya Kunjapur, University of Delaware

March 2026: Mary Dunlop, Boston University

April 2026: Julius Lucks, Northwestern University

2024-25 Speakers

September 2024: Benjamin Adler, University of California, Berkeley

October 2024: Lingchong You, Duke University

November 2024: Jeff Barrick, University of Texas at Austin

December 2024: Howard Salis, University of California, Riverside

January 2025: John Marken, California Institute of Technology

February 2025: Thomas Segall-Shapiro, Houston Methodist Academic Institute

March 2025: Ophelia Venturelli, Duke University

April 2025: Carrie Eckert, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

May 2025: Jennifer Brophy, Stanford University