2025 NOBCChE Annual Conference

Karmella Haynes is an Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Emory University. She earned her Ph.D. studying epigenetics and chromatin in Drosophila at Washington University, St. Louis. Postdoctoral fellowships at Davidson College and Harvard Medical School introduced her to synthetic biology. Her Davidson HHMI postdoc fellowship project on bacterial computers was recognized as “Publication of the Year” in 2008 by the Journal of Biological Engineering. Today, her research aims to apply the intrinsic properties of chromatin, the DNA-protein structure that packages eukaryotic genes, to engineer proteins and nucleic acids that control cell development. After Dr. Haynes joined the faculty at the Emory School of Medicine in 2019, she received an NIH R21 grant (2019) to develop new protein engineering and computational tools for cancer epigenetics, and launched the annual NSF-funded AfroBiotech conference series (2019). She is a founder and instructor of the Cold Spring Harbor Summer Course on Synthetic Biology (2013 – present), a member of the national Engineering Biology Research Consortium (EBRC, 2014 – present), past advisor and current Judge Emeritus for the annual International Genetically Engineered Machines (iGEM) competition (2007 – present), and a member of the NIH National Scientific Advisory Board for Biosecurity (2021). She was named one of 1000 Inspiring Black Scientists by Cell Mentor (Cell Press 2020), was a featured guest on PBS NOVA (2020) and PRI’s Science Friday (2016), was profiled in Forbes magazine (2020), received Color Magazine’s Women of Color: Innovator in STEM award (2021), and was elected into the 2023 American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) College of Fellows.

Prof. Christy L. Haynes is the Distinguished McKnight University Professor at the University of Minnesota where her research group is dedicated to applying analytical and nanomaterials chemistry in the context of agriculture, ecology, and toxicology. Haynes launched her independent laboratory in the Department of Chemistry in 2005. Since then, 29 researchers have completed their PhDs in the Haynes Lab, with 11 more currently in progress. Professor Haynes is currently the Head of the University of Minnesota Department of Chemistry, the Associate Director of the National Science Foundation-funded Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology, and an Associate Editor for the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Christina Bennett, PhD is a Publisher in the Publications Division at the American Chemical Society. She helps lead the strategy and editorial management of ACS’s ~90 journals. Before joining ACS, she served as the Publications Director of Policy in the Publications Division at the American Physiological Society. In that role, she was responsible for analyzing and addressing the ethics concerns that arose in the 16 journals and provided guidance on best practice in publication ethics and policy. Prior to joining the APS, Christina was a post-doctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland, and taught human physiology as an Adjunct Professor in the Biology Department at American University, Washington, D.C.  She received her PhD in Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Michigan and her BS in Biochemistry/Minor in Bioethics at the University of Virginia. Christina is an active contributor in the publishing and research integrity community. She’s served on a working group between Research Integrity Officers, Institution Legal Counsel, and Publishers to identify ways to better work together on research integrity issues.  She is currently serving on a STM working group for Image Alteration and Data Duplication to provide resources to the publishing industry that support better detection of image concerns. Christina is also faculty for the CSE short-course on Publication Ethics.