Welcome, Jon

We have another legendary postdoc joining our team, this time as a Schmidt Science Fellow. Excited to have you onboard, Jon! Read below for more info.

Jon was born and raised in the Basque Country, Spain. He received his PhD in Medical Engineering and Medical Physics from the joint Harvard-MIT program in Health Sciences and Technology under Prof. Pardis Sabeti. His PhD research focused on developing genomic technologies for early pathogen detection. During this time, he developed SHINE, a suite of CRISPR-based diagnostic platforms for viral detection in decentralized settings. In 2024, Jon worked as a Biosecurity Game Changers Fellow at the Pandemic Center at Brown University, where he developed a Global Diagnostic Gap Assessment report in collaboration with the International Pandemic Preparedness Secretariat (IPPS) and FIND. The report provides evidence-based and actionable priorities to boost the development and global access of diagnostics for outbreak-prone pathogens. Jon is excited to join the Hill-Maini Lab as a postdoc and Schmidt Science Fellow, where he will employ computational and experimental approaches to characterize and engineer filamentous fungi for sustainability and food applications. He hopes to combine bioengineering approach and policy to address critical challenges in global food systems, sustainable agriculture and food security. Outside the lab, Jon enjoys cooking (and eating), dancing, sports, and watching films.