In May of 2005, Omar S. Akbari received a B.S./M.S. in Biotechnology from the University of Nevada, Reno. In December of 2008, he received a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Nevada, Reno where he studied the role cis-regulatory modules play in cellular identity along the anterio-posterior axis in developing Drosophila melanogaster embryos. In May of 2009, he joined the laboratory of professor Bruce A. Hay at the California Institute of Technology as a Postdoctoral Scholar to innovate synthetic biology of disease vectors. In summer of 2015, he became an Assistant Professor of Entomology in the Center for Infectious Disease Vector Research (CIDVR) at the University of California, Riverside. In fall of 2017, he joined the faculty as an Assistant Professor in the Cell and Developmental Biology Section, within the Division of Biological Sciences, and a member of the TATA institute for Genetics and Society at the University of California, San Diego.