Biography
Pablo Cárdenas Ramírez is an incoming assistant professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Cornell University, beginning in the summer of 2026. A native of Bogotá, Colombia, Pablo obtained an undergraduate degree at Universidad de los Andes dipping toes in computational, experimental, and field work in biology. He left Bogotá for research stints in France and the US before obtaining a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Biological Engineering, where he developed synthetic and computational biology techniques for manipulating malaria parasites and studying pathogen epidemiology and evolution. He currently researches influenza immunity and evolution as a postdoctoral fellow at the Ragon Institute and Harvard Medical School.
Research Interests
At Cornell, Pablo will be leading the Multiscale Evolutionary Engineering Lab (mseelab.org). MsEE Lab will develop experimental and computational methods to engineer evolution in a quantitative, systematic, and predictive manner, from the molecular to the population scale. The lab will use synthetic biology tools to build experimental models of evolution and combine mechanistic simulation tools with machine learning predictions to quantify uncertainty and likelihood in evolutionary trajectories. It will apply these insights across multiple problem spaces in bioengineering, including therapeutic design and immunoengineering for infectious disease and cancer, microbiome engineering for human health and agriculture, synthetic cell factories for industrial applications, and beyond.
Main research areas:
- Bioengineering
- Evolution
- Systems and Synthetic Biology
- Computational Science and Engineering
- Infectious Disease
Teaching Interests
Pablo is passionate about open science, effective communication, and dedicated pedagogical practices. He takes teaching and mentorship very seriously, and considers it an integral part of our work as scientists. Pablo has developed workshops, programming, and written resources to support research project mentorship skills as a Teaching Development Fellow at MIT’s Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL). He also completed courses on Subject Design, Lesson Planning, Microteaching, and teaching methods that support students of all backgrounds on the way to obtaining a MIT TLL Teaching Certificate. He served for five years as a confidential peer counselor and conflict coach through the MIT Resources for Easing Friction and Stress (REFS) program. Pablo is enthusiastic about rethinking and experimenting with how science operates and how it interacts with society.
Select Publications
Education
- B.Sc. Microbiology, Universidad de los Andes (Uniandes), Bogotá, Colombia 2018
- Ph.D. Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA, USA 2024