Undergraduate work
Sarah M. Coleman was born and raised in Austin, TX. She received her S.B. in Chemical-Biological Engineering from MIT in Spring 2019, where she conducted undergraduate research in the labs of Dr. Gregory Stephanopoulos and Dr. Michael Strano, for two years and one year, respectively. Her undergraduate research with Dr. Strano in plant nanobionics assisted in an art exhibit at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in New York City in Summer 2019.
Graduate work
Sarah began her doctoral research in sustainable waste valorization (also known as upcycling) via genetically engineered yeast in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin with Dr. Hal S. Alper in Fall 2019. In Spring 2021, Sarah was awarded the NSF GRFP. In 2022, Sarah was awarded the Green Fund Grant (University of Texas at Austin, Department of Sustainability) for her doctoral resesearch. In Spring 2024, Sarah M. Coleman received her M.S. in Statistics (concurrent with her PhD) from the University of Texas at Austin. In Summer 2024, Sarah defended her PhD in Chemical Engineering, with a dissertation entitled “A Yeast Grease Feast: Expanding waste valorization by Yarrowia clade yeasts to nontraditional and hydrophobic substrates”. During her PhD, Sarah authored 11 publications (including one preprint) with five of those at the first- or co-first level. Fun fact: Sarah’s Academic Family Tree (based on her PhD Advisor Lineage) goes back to the 1400’s!
Postdoctoral work
In Fall 2024, Sarah began her position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Biostatistics in the Department of Statistics and Data Science under the supervision of Dr. Roger D. Peng at the University of Texas at Austin. In Summer 2025, Sarah (presenting author) won the Professional division of the JSM Data Science Expo Challenge, along with three other UT Austin postdoctoral fellows.
Internships and other experience
During her summers at MIT, Sarah M. Coleman interned in pharmaceutical process development for vaccines and cancer therapeutics at Takeda Vaccines and Bristol-Myers Squibb, respectively. She also served as the MATLAB and Simulink Student Ambassador for the University of Texas at Austin from 2020-2021. She is a student leader; at MIT, she served as the President of the MIT AIChE Chapter (previously serving as Intracollegiate Chair and Sophomore Class Representative) and the Program Administrator of the Chemical Engineering Freshman Pre-Orientation Program (FPOP; previously serving as Head Counselor and Counselor of the Engineering division). She was also a second year-leader in MIT’s Gordon Engineering Leadership Program, and worked as a math tutor for a local nonprofit, Girls’ Angle. During her time in graduate school, she served as the President (previously serving as Outreach Coordinator and Enrichment Chair) of the Chemical Engineering Graduate Leadership Council (ChE GLC). She also found time to have fun. At MIT, she occasionally performed as TIM the beaver (the MIT mascot), and served as co-president and founder of Fruit Club. She enjoys hiking, being outdoors, gardening, her dog Chief, and any and all sorts of fermentation.
