Douglas Densmore

Roles and Affiliations: Douglas Densmore is a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Boston University, holding the Tegan Family Distinguished Faculty Fellowship. He leads the CIDAR Group and directs the Biological Design Center. His primary appointment is in the College of Engineering, with affiliations in Biomedical Engineering, Bioinformatics, and Materials Science & Engineering. He also serves as an affiliated PI in the Engineering Biology Research Center and NSF CELL-MET ERC.

Education: He earned a PhD in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley (2007), following MS (2004) and BS (2001) degrees from UC Berkeley and the University of Michigan, respectively. His postdoctoral research included work at UC Berkeley and the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC).

Research Interests: Densmore focuses on synthetic biology tools, microfluidics, and design automation. His work integrates electronic design automation (EDA) principles with biological systems to create high-level abstraction frameworks. Key areas include:

• Development of domain-specific languages for genetic circuit design
• Standardization of biological parts and data exchange
• Hardware-software-wetware co-design for synthetic systems
• Microfluidic platforms for high-throughput experimentation

Awards and Recognition: He has received prestigious honors such as the AIMBE Fellowship (2021), Inaugural DAC Under-40 Innovators Award (2017), and NSF CAREER Award (2013). His contributions span academic, entrepreneurial, and editorial roles in synthetic biology.

Grants and Labs: His research is supported by grants from NSF, NIH, DARPA, and industry partnerships. He leads the CIDAR lab, which combines computational and experimental approaches. He co-founded companies like Lattice Automation and Asimov, advancing bio-design automation commercially.