José Avalos is an assistant professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University. He is also an associated faculty member in the Princeton Environmental Institute and the Department of Molecular Biology. His research focuses on the use of biotechnology to address challenges in renewable energy, sustainable manufacturing, the environment, and human health. His lab works primarily in metabolic engineering, synthetic biology, protein engineering, systems biology, and structural biology.
Avalos earned a B.E. in chemical engineering from Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. He then received an MSc in biochemical research from Imperial College in London, and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from Johns Hopkins University. He did postdoctoral research at The Rockefeller University in membrane biophysics; and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in metabolic engineering and synthetic biology. He has received several awards, including the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship, the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Research Fellowship Award, the Pew scholarship, the NSF CAREER Award, and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award.