Austin, TX | Open to relocation nationwide.
sarahmcoleman.phd@gmail.com
| sarahmcoleman.github.io
| linkedin.com/in/sarah-m-coleman
Summary
Bioprocess development engineer specializing in upstream
process development and fed-batch
fermentation, with upstream PD experience at Bristol
Myers Squibb (biologics, CHO cell culture) and
Takeda (vaccines, Vero cells). Background spans
microbial strain and fermentation process development, downstream
protein recovery, multi-omics analysis, and statistical modeling. PhD in
Chemical Engineering and MS in Statistics, with experience in
scale-up, DoE, and statistical
analysis of experimental biology data in Python and R.
Work Experience
BioReNuva, Austin, TX
Bioprocess Development Engineer | Jun 2026 – Present
- Established fed-batch fermentation capability for glycolipid
production with Pseudomonas as subject-matter expert
- Designed and implemented the company’s first fed-batch bioreactor
process from scratch, including equipment selection, feed strategy,
control parameters, and run protocols
- Defined key performance indicators (KPIs) and identified process
bottlenecks, informing the scale-up roadmap
- Authored the bioreactor standard operating procedure (SOP) and batch
records; trained team members on the process
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Postdoctoral Research Fellow (Statistics and Data Sciences) |
Oct 2024 – Sep 2026
- Developed epidemiological and statistical models of
environmental-health data in Dr. Roger D. Peng’s group
- Wrote first-author papers in Environmental Research
Communications, Environmental Health (under review), and
CHANCE (in press), the last from a first-place JSM Data
Challenge Expo entry
- Advised medical faculty on statistical methodology
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Lecturer (Statistics and Data Sciences) | Jan 2026 – Apr
2026
- Taught a 100-student upper-division data science and machine
learning course as the instructor of record, rated 4.32/5 by students,
above department, college, and university averages; managed 3 TAs
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Graduate Research Fellow (Chemical Engineering) | Aug 2019 –
Aug 2024
- Designed and ran batch Yarrowia lipolytica fermentations in
3 L bioreactors at up to 50% (v/v) waste cooking oil, among the highest
loadings reported, with CFD modeling of scale-up to 4,000 L, published
in Biotechnology Journal
- Developed media formulations, prepared inoculum, ran reactor
sterilization and probe calibration, and tracked runs by optical
density, dry cell weight, and HPLC for sugars and organic acids
- Designed factorial (DoE) screens of nitrogen source, nitrogen
concentration, and substrate loading to optimize media for a yeast
alkane-assimilation panel, analyzed by three-way ANOVA with post-hoc
correction
- Increased Y. lipolytica tolerance to hydrothermal
liquefaction wastewater from 10% to 30% (v/v) by adaptive laboratory
evolution, yielding an isolate with nearly 3-fold higher titer of the
high-value polyketide triacetic acid lactone while reducing COD
(chemical oxygen demand), published in Applied Microbiology and
Biotechnology
- Evolved Y. lipolytica for growth on high-density waste
cooking oil (submitted to Bioresource Technology),
characterized it by genomics, transcriptomics, and metabolomics, and
engineered it to produce long-chain fatty alcohols
- Developed a genome editing system using Golden Gate assembly for
targeted engineering of Y. lipolytica, and used this system to
screen a native promoter library
- Proposed and validated a linear mixed-effects model to
quantitatively evaluate the performance of biological Boolean logic
gates for the first time, published in ACS Synthetic
Biology
- Mentored 4 undergraduates and 2 junior PhD students; presented
results to project sponsors and collaborators
MathWorks, Remote (Natick, MA)
MATLAB Student Ambassador | Mar 2020 – Jul 2021
- Taught technical workshops on MATLAB-based modeling and data
analysis to academic researchers at UT Austin
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
MA
Advanced Undergraduate Researcher | Sep 2018 – Aug 2019
- Developed a method of nanophosphor size sorting in Dr. Michael S.
Strano’s lab to improve the capacitance of nanoparticles infiltrated
into a light emitting plant
Bristol Myers Squibb, Devens, MA
Upstream Process Development Intern (Biologics) | Jun 2018 –
Aug 2018
- Designed and executed metabolite-controlled fed-batch cell culture
experiments in 12 parallel 5 L bioreactors to systematically evaluate
monoclonal antibody production performance in CHO cell lines
- Analyzed upstream bioprocess data to identify conditions that
improved yield stability and process robustness
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
MA
Undergraduate Researcher | Sep 2016 – Aug 2018
- Expressed recombinant protein in E. coli with IPTG
induction, harvested by centrifugation and depth filtration, performed
lysis and clarification, and purified by 6xHis affinity chromatography,
assessing yield and purity by SDS-PAGE, Bradford, and UV280
- Developed anaerobic assays in Dr. Gregory Stephanopoulos’s lab to
characterize the carbon assimilation of Moorella thermoacetica
enzymes in the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway
Takeda Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA
Process Development Intern (Vaccines) | May 2017 – Aug 2017
- Optimized Vero cell culture to improve vaccine production in a
next-generation manufacturing system
- Ran tangential flow filtration (TFF) for vaccine manufacturing, and
helped design experiments to improve process scalability and production
efficiency
- Performed analytical assays to determine infectious vaccine titer
(CFU)
Education
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, Aug 2024 (Advisor: Dr. Hal S.
Alper)
The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX
M.S. in Statistics, May 2024
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge,
MA
S.B. in Chemical-Biological Engineering, Jun 2019 (Research
advisors: Dr. Michael S. Strano, Dr. Gregory Stephanopoulos)
Technical Skills
- Bioprocessing & Fermentation: Batch and
fed-batch microbial fermentation, bioreactor operation with DO and pH
control (BioFlo/CelliGen with BioCommand, DeltaV), shake flask culture,
high-throughput growth screening (BioLector, 96-well plates), OD600, dry
cell weight, off-gas analysis, scale-up, kLa and mass transfer, media
and feed development, seed train, tangential flow filtration (TFF),
SOPs, batch records, tech transfer documentation
- Synthetic Biology & Metabolic Engineering:
Metabolic engineering, genome editing (Golden Gate and Gibson assembly,
CRISPR), plasmid design and cloning (E. coli), colony
selection, strain engineering, promoter library screening, adaptive
laboratory evolution
- Cell Culture & Molecular Biology: Yeast,
bacterial, and mammalian (CHO, Vero) cell culture, aseptic technique,
BSL-2 and BSL-2+, cGLP, recombinant protein expression (IPTG induction),
6xHis affinity chromatography, SDS-PAGE, Vi-CELL, Cedex Bio,
NucleoCounter, flow cytometry, qPCR, protein purification, Western
blotting
- Computational Biology & Data Science: Python,
R, SQL, MATLAB, JMP, statistical modeling, machine learning, data
visualization, DoE, CFD (Ansys CFX)
- Bioinformatics & Omics: RNA-seq and Tag-seq
(DESeq2), genomic variant analysis, genome annotation, metabolomics,
high-performance computing, Docker
- Analytical Chemistry: HPLC, LC-MS/MS, GC-MS,
headspace GC, UV-Vis, assay development, plate reader assays
- Software: Benchling, LIMS, Linux, Bash, Git/GitHub,
Jupyter, LaTeX, GraphPad Prism
Select Honors and Awards
- First Place, Professional Division at the Data Challenge
Expo, JSM (Joint Statistical Meetings), 2025
- National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship
(NSF GRFP), 2021
- Provost’s Graduate Excellence Fellowship, UT
Austin, 2019
- Individual Accomplishment Citation, MIT Department of
Chemical Engineering, 2018 & 2019
Only known undergraduate to win this award two years in a row, for
volunteer work and service to the department