Mock Plesa Lab People

Department of Bioengineering

The Plesa Lab

Large scale protein engineering and characterization

Principal Investigator

Calin Plesa

Calin Plesa

Associate Professor, Department of Bioengineering

Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact

Department of Bioengineering

calin[at]uoregon.edu | Google Scholar

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Postdoc Biochemistry, UCLA (Sri Kosuri)
Ph.D. Bionanoscience / Biophysics, Delft University of Technology, (Cees Dekker​)
M.Sc. Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, Chalmers University of Technology
B.A.Sc. Engineering Physics, Simon Fraser University
 

 

Lab Members

Headshot of Anissa Benabbas

Anissa Benabbas

Graduate Student

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Project: Protein Engineering

Department of Biology, Institute of Molecular Biology
B.S. Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz​

 

headshot of sayandeep gupta

Sayandeep Gupta

Postdoc

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Project: Antibody Generation

Ph.D.  Life Science & Biotechnology, Jadavpur University
M.Sc., Microbiology, West Bengal State University
B.Sc. Microbiology, University of Calcutta

A man standing on a stairwell

Karl Romanowicz

Postdoc

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Project: DHFR / Sequence-Function Relationships

Ph.D.,  Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan
M.Sc., Applied Ecology, Michigan Technological University
B.Sc. Applied Ecology and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University

 

Samuel Hinton

Samuel Hinton

​Research Assistant and Lab Manager

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Project: Histidine Kinases, Gene Synthesis

B.A. Chemistry, ​Willamette University

 

Headshot of Craig Stolarczyk

Craig Stolarczyk

Senior Staff Scientist of Technology Development and Commercialization

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Project: Gene Synthesis

M.S. University of Oregon

 

Headshot of Luca Lippert

Luca Lippert

Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar

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​Project: Histidine Kinases​

 

Blue and white and red protein structure

Soren Tucker

Undergraduate Researcher

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Project: Gene Synthesis

 

Blue and white and red protein structure

David Curtis

Undergraduate Researcher

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​Project: Histidine Kinases​

 

a spider in a test tube

Remington (Remmy) Salticidae

Arthropod Research Scholar

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Project: Antibiotic Resistance​

 

Join the Plesa Lab

We are actively recruiting:

Graduate Students 

We may have an opening for Fall 2026 pending funding (Mar 2026). We’re primarily recruiting students with some computational skills (experience with Python, R, machine learning, etc…) that complements wet lab experience. UO graduate students should apply for admission through our Bioengineering graduate program joint with OSU. We also admit students through the Biology department, Chemistry department, or the Institute of Molecular Biology. Send Calin an email to discuss rotation projects and other research opportunities. OHSU students should apply through the Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Postdoctoral Scholars

Currently no openings (Mar 2026).

Bioinformaticians

Currently no openings (Mar 2026).

Research Associate / Staff Scientist

Currently no openings (Mar 2026).

Research Assistant

Currently no openings (Mar 2026).

Undergraduate Students

Currently no openings (Mar 2026). We strongly recommend students participate in the UOregon iGEM team prior to starting lab research.

Plesa Lab Alumni

  • Dr. Natanya Villegas, PhD student, OHSU
  • Dr. Andrew Holston, PhD student
  • Abbey Keller, Undergraduate, ResearcherFox Chase Cancer Center
  • Oliver Loreto, Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar, Ultima Genomics
  • Keane Deas, Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar, ClearMark Bioscience
  • Philip Jimenez, Undergraduate Researcher, OHSU
  • Phillip Kearns, Machine Learning Engineer, USPTO
  • Yuki Gaudreault, Undergraduate Thesis, ICON
  • Mindy Tran, Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar, Boston Uni.
  • Avery Billo, Undergraduate Researcher, OHSU
  • Carmen Resnick, Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar, Octant Bio
  • Kyra Lindley, Research Assistant, OHSU
  • Rachel Ferina, BGMP Bioinformatics researcher, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center
  • SJ Kim, BGMP Bioinformatics researcher, OHSU
  • Amanda Kreppel, Undergraduate Researcher, Peter O’Day Fellow '21, Debut Biotechnology
  • Nora Kearns, Knight Campus Undergraduate Scholar, Undergrad Honors Thesis, Peter O’Day Fellow '21, Pluto Bio
     

The Plesa Lab 

Founded in 2020, the Plesa Lab is a synthetic biology research group within the University of Oregon's Phil and Penny Knight Campus for Accelerating Scientific Impact. Based in the Department of Bioengineering in Eugene, Oregon, the Plesa Lab builds scalable systems to accelerate the pace at which we understand and engineer biological protein-based systems.