I'm an interdisciplinary researcher working across biology, instrument science, computation, and design. I work with a variety of organisms, from Bacillus to bees. I also build measurement systems, evaluate technologies, and develop the data infrastructure to investigate complex science questions. I like doing hands-on experiments at the bench, desk, workshop, and real world.

Currently I'm a Project Scientist at Arcadia Science in Berkeley, focusing on rapid pilots in experimental biology, measurement tools and techniques for living systems, and advancing reproducible, open science. I'm also a member of the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover science team through the Carnegie Institution for Science, supporting the SHERLOC deep UV Raman and fluorescence instrument.

I founded ex situ bio, a scientific consulting and design practice that provides technical expertise to early-stage companies in areas including biological design, high-throughput microscopy, and laboratory operations. I’ve also served as a reviewer for science and technology proposals from the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, NASA ROSES, the Royal Society, and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

I completed my PhD (‘20) and MS (‘16) at the MIT Media Lab as part of The Mediated Matter Group, led by Prof. Neri Oxman and my BS (‘14) in Biology and concentration in Psychology at MIT, with research advised by Dr. Annabelle Singer and Prof. Ed Boyden. My doctoral thesis was on designing the organism-environment relationship across scales. I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at NASA JPL in the Planetary Science Section, and a research affiliate with the MIT Space Exploration Initiative. I also was an artist-in-residence in the lab of Dr. Vera Meyer at TU Berlin.

sunanda@exsitu.bio

exsitu.bio / xc2.bio

ORCID