Sarah M. Coleman was born and raised in Austin, TX. She received her S.B. in Chemical-Biological Engineering (10B) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (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.
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. Fun fact: Sarah’s Academic Family Tree (based on PhD Advisor Lineage) goes back to the 1400’s! As a second year graduate student, Sarah was awarded the NSF GRFP in Spring 2021. She was a recipient of the Green Fund Grant for her waste cooking oil valorization research from the University of Texas at Austin Department of Sustainability in the 2021-2022 cycle. In Spring 2024, Sarah M. Coleman received a M.S. in Statistics (concurrent with her PhD) from the University of Texas at Austin. A couple months later, in Summer 2024, Sarah received 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”. 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.
During her undegraduate summers, 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.
