Karmella Haynes is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University. She earned her Ph.D. studying epigenetics and chromatin in Drosophila at Washington University, St. Louis. Postdoctoral fellowships at Davidson College and Harvard Medical School introduced her to synthetic biology. Today, her research aims to identify how the intrinsic properties of chromatin, the DNA-protein structure that packages eukaryotic genes, can be used to control cell development in tissues. Her HHMI postdoctoral fellowship project on bacterial computers was recognized as “Publication of the Year” in 2008 by the Journal of Biological Engineering. In 2011 Dr. Haynes joined the School of Biological and Health Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. While at ASU she received an NIH Young Faculty Award (K01) and a Arizona Biomedical Early Stage Investigator Award (AZ ESI). In 2018 she joined the W. H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering as an Associate Professor. She is currently a Director of the Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC), a SynBioLEAP alum, and Advisor and Judge Emeritus for the International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition. She is a two-time featured guest on PRI’s Science Friday.