John received his PhD in Molecular & Cell Biology, & Biochemistry from Brown University. He founded the Brown iGEM team at Brown, and has been working in synthetic biology in space at NASA Ames since 2008. He is also the founder of SynBioBeta and more recently SynB.Org, dedicated to creating value in synthetic biology by bringing together industry experts, entrepreneurs, investors, engineers and scientists. Teaching, training and job creation are the foundation of the organization.