Eliza Mills

Eliza is interested in engineering synthetic microbial communities that convert plant and agricultural waste into sustainable chemicals. Her research combines anaerobic gut fungi from herbivores, which naturally break down crude plant biomass, with anaerobic chain-elongating bacteria that can transform lignocellulose-derived substrates into valuable medium-chain fatty acids. Using the NSF ExFAB Biofoundry, she is developing a high-throughput platform to rapidly build, screen, and optimize these microbial communities for sustainable biomanufacturing.

When she's not in the lab, Eliza enjoys learning guitar, reading, and staying active.