The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering is pleased to present our annual Contextualizing Engineering Seminar with Kevin Solomon, Associate Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware.

Dr. Solomon will present a seminar titled "HIDDEN FIGURES: The unseen power of gut microbes and a culture of inclusion advancing next?gen biomanufacturing."

Microbial chemical factories are sustainable biomanufacturing platforms that complement traditional petrochemical industries by using renewable and/or alternative carbon sources. Most attractive of these are those derived from unconventional microbes due to their rich repertoire of enzymes to efficiently process diverse carbon sources and unique capacity to catalyze certain industrial chemistries at scale. These properties are frequently a consequence of the high resource competition in their native exotic environments, such as animal microbiomes. However, these microbes remain poorly characterized with few tools to deploy them for industrial applications. In this talk, I will describe our progress towards the study and engineering of these systems for the use of post-consumer plastics and lignocellulosic biomass. I will also share some of our work building an inclusive community of scholars to foster development of a more creative next generation workforce.

Dr. Kevin Solomon is the Thomas & Kipp Gutshall Career Development Associate Professor of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Delaware. His work focuses on developing environmental microbes and microbiomes that are well-adapted for applications in sustainability, materials, and health via systems and synthetic biology approaches. He holds a bachelor's degree in Chemical Engineering and Bioengineering from McMaster University, an MS in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from MIT. He has been recognized with multiple awards for research, teaching, and service including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) from President Biden in 2025, a US Department of Energy Early Career Award (2019), an NSF CAREER Award (2022), the Society for Industrial Microbiology & Biotechnology (SIMB) Early Career Award (2022), the Lloyd N. Ferguson Young Scientist Award from NOBCChE (2023), the American Chemical Society (ACS) Biochemical Technology (BIOT) Division Early Career Award (2023) and the AIChE Division 15 Early Career Award (2023). He has provided expert testimony before the 116th US House of Representatives on the convergence of engineering and biology and has coauthored several technology roadmaps for engineering biology.