Better together: ASU Biodesign thrives on collaboration

By Erik Ketcherside

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of profiles of former faculty, staff and student workers at ASU’s Biodesign Institute in celebration of its 20th anniversary. Read the first story and the second story in the series.

The Biodesign Institute was founded as a unique science environment, a community of researchers collaborating across disciplines to fuel rapid discoveries. Like any community, Biodesign requires a variety of abilities, expertise and perspectives to excel at its highest level. Empowering faculty, staff and students to work and grow together, and to discover and expand their potential in any role, allows the Biodesign community to thrive.

Meet three former members of the Biodesign community who came to the institute at different times in their lives, with different experiences and abilities, and helped advance the institute’s mission. Two have gone on to impactful careers, and one leaves behind a proud legacy of service.

Rigorous experimentation plus open collaboration

Kathryn Scheckel, ’12 BS in molecular biosciences and biotechnology, BA in music; ’16 MA in public policy — high school intern, 2005–06; undergraduate researcher, 2007–10

Kathryn Scheckel’s experience with the Biodesign Institute began even before she graduated from high school.

“I was a high school intern in the summer program in 2005 and 2006,” Scheckel says. “I conducted research with Professor Joseph Wang, working on an implantable subcutaneous biosensor to detect glucose and lactose in the blood for multi-applications including diabetes, athletic performance and other metabolic disease and health states.”

She would later credit that internship, and the yearslong association with the institute it led to, as foundational in preparing her for her career.

“As a high school intern, getting to work alongside postdoctoral scholars to create and test implantable needles with graphene and other materials, and the ability to have feedback from those mentors — these were really critical,” Scheckel says. “Dr. Wang also allowed me to audit his graduate-level course on microelectronics.”

She admits the material was sometimes “… above my understanding, but it was quite impactful to experience what senior levels of research might be like, and to interact with graduate students.”

In 2007, when Scheckel enrolled at ASU as a Flinn scholar and student in Barrett, The Honors College, those two summer internships eased her transition to the role of undergraduate researcher at Biodesign. There, she worked with professors Kathryn Sykes and Stephen Johnston on a variety of genetics-related vaccines, including one for cancer. Scheckel says that both her Biodesign teams heightened her love and passion for science.

“The rigorous approach to experimentation and the open atmosphere to collaborate, learn and discover were quite inviting,” she says. “The institute was full of elite academics but was always welcoming to rising learners.”

In 2010, Scheckel left the institute for a research assistant position in ASU’s School of Life Sciences, working in the lab of then-Associate Professor Carsten Duch. “I did my honors thesis in this lab studying neuronal activity in fruit flies and became a published scientific author post-graduation as a result” — an accomplishment she says was made possible by another lasting gift from the institute: “A deep appreciation of how problem areas are often not confined to one discipline but are truly multi- and cross-disciplinary.”

She also put that appreciation into action in preparing for her career. Scheckel graduated in 2012 with two bachelor’s degrees and a certificate in philosophy, politics and law, and went on to earn a Master of Arts in public policy.

Today, she is head of global ventures at Hines, a real estate development, investment and management firm based in New York City. Scheckel directs a team of 50 people incubating startups from scratch through Hines’ Venture Studio, Venture Investments and Venture Partnerships.

Today, she is based in New York City as head of the Global Ventures platform at Hines, a global real estate development, investment and management firm. Scheckel directs a multi-disciplinary group of teams focused on incubating early-stage companies that solve problems facing the built environment, as well as striking commercial partnerships with growing startups.

“All of our focus areas are around problems that impact the built world, including challenges about how physical space utilization is changing, sustainability, and technology impacting real estate,” Scheckel says. “It’s fulfilling work, applying scientific methodologies to venture-based innovation to create distinct outcomes to improve lives of people.”

She adds, “The work at Biodesign developed my rigorous approach to problem-solving, created a strong structure and foundation on which to understand how to research and explore, and helped me understand more deeply what it means to be on a true team with many other contributors and collaborators.”

‘If you don’t know the answer, there’s probably someone around who does’

Diana C. Calvo Martinez, ’21 PhD in environmental engineering — graduate researcher and postdoctoral researcher, 2015–22

“This is my dream job,” says Diana Calvo Martinez. She’s an assistant professor in Northern Arizona University’s Department of Civil Engineering, Construction Management and Environmental Engineering; and affiliated faculty of the School of Earth and Sustainability and Applied Indigenous Studies. “My main course at NAU is Environmental Biotechnology, which was my field during my PhD,” she says. “My research lab now deeply focuses on this field as well; however, it also has a strong component of human health and data analysis, which was my focus in my postdoc at the Biodesign Institute. We combine our expertise in environmental biotech and human health with NAU´s strong connection to indigenous communities, working collaboratively for water security on these communities.”

Calvo Martinez says the time she spent at the Biodesign Institute, first as a graduate researcher while working on her PhD from ASU and then as a postdoctoral researcher, was “absolutely key” to attaining that dream job she has today.

Calvo Martinez became aware of the institute as an environmental engineering undergraduate in her native Colombia.

“I had Dr. [Bruce] Rittmann's book as my main text,” she says, referring to “Environmental Biotechnology: Principles and Applications,” co-authored with Perry McCarty. “I got fascinated by it and started doing undergraduate research about the topics in the book.”

She went on to earn a Master of Science degree and became a junior professor at Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, but she couldn't stop wondering what more she could learn from Rittman.

“I had to go to ASU, to Bruce Rittmann, no matter what. It took me four years to get my scholarships and all the paperwork needed, but I was finally on his team in the Swette Center for Environmental Biotechnology.”

Starting as a graduate researcher for Rittmann and Cesar Torres, Calvo Martinez investigated the sustainable production of chemicals with microbes.

“I did a lot of lab work, reactors, experiments, modeling, data analysis and also some interdisciplinary work with internal and external partners,” she recalls. “Later, as a postdoc, I worked for some time with Dr. Rittmann for water remediation, then moved to work with Dr. Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown in the Biodesign Center for Health through Microbiomes for a project on autism in children and the possible effects of pre-probiotics.”

Calvo Martinez says her appreciation of the institute goes beyond what she learned and the work she accomplished. It’s also based on the supportive relationships she found there. “Dr. Rittmann always says, ‘Once a Swette, always a Swette.’ I am so grateful that I can collaborate with the Center and especially with my mentors.” In addition to working alongside Rittmann, she says, “I was lucky enough to have probably the smartest person I know, Dr. Torres, as my co-advisor. And later, when I needed the health link for my career plan, Dr. Krajmalnik-Brown opened her doors to me. I closely relate to her as a Latina, as a mom, as an environmental engineer and as a health-oriented person.”

She says Biodesign’s dedication to transdisciplinary research — a place where biologists, physicists, chemists, engineers and mathematicians cross traditional boundaries to work together — make it a unique and powerful source of knowledge.

“The nature of Biodesign creates an environment of ‘if you don’t know the answer, there is probably someone around who does,’” she says. “There are so many different backgrounds and cultures there, creating such a unique and enriched environment.”

A very deep sense of pride

John W. Phillips, ’76 BS in medical technology, Pittsburg State University; ’76 Medical Technologist certification, American Society of Clinical Pathologists — multiple positions, 2006–22

John Phillips, who retired from ASU in 2022, wore many hats in his 16 years at the Biodesign Institute. He arrived in 2006, a certified medical technologist with a biology degree and a minor in chemistry, and experience in human transplant immunology, development of veterinary clinical testing procedures, and health and safety. And like most staff members and student researchers at the institute, he soon got opportunities to spread his wings.

“When I first started, my primary job was as health and safety assistant under Leslie Miller,” Phillips recalls, “and I temporarily helped in shipping and receiving until a full-time staff member was hired. Several years later I became the health and safety officer under Mike McLeod, along with being responsible for space planning.”

Phillips says the health and safety assignments presented many challenges, some familiar to most workplaces, such as new employee fire and laboratory safety training, assigning keys for desks and cabinets, and creating and distributing custom signage throughout the buildings. He’s particularly proud of being ASU’s point person for distributing COVID signage during the pandemic.

“I was responsible for getting signage to not only the local campuses but to ASU units in California, Washington, D.C., and Lake Havasu,” he says. “This was vital to the well-being of all members of the ASU community.”

Phillips says other assignments were specific to a scientific facility, such as managing the operation of the Rees temperature monitoring system and irradiator and responding to safety issues such as chemical spills. Some emergencies were less hazardous, he says, such as “burned popcorn in the microwave ovens.” And some of his tasks were just odd, though certainly still challenging, such as teaching staff how to ride Segways.

Working in health and safety taught Phillips to be agile.

“I was assigned the responsibility of maintaining the database for space usage within Biodesign, keeping building space assignment layouts up to date as well as completing ASU’s annual space utilization survey,” he explains. “I eventually became responsible for creating building and room layouts in preparation for renovating laboratory spaces or office spaces for new researchers or new projects. Even designing unoccupied space for new centers. That’s when I gave up doing health and safety to concentrate on space planning within Biodesign.”

When he retired in 2022, it was after two years as facilities project coordinator for the constantly evolving institute.

Trained as a medical technologist, Phillips says, “I never expected to end up in a research facility doing health and safety and space planning. But I wouldn't trade my time at Biodesign for any different career path.”

He says one of the advantages of his wide-ranging responsibilities was an awareness of the scope of work going on around him. “I was constantly amazed by all the different disciplines of research: the development of vaccines in plants, learning about tardigrades recovered in Antarctica, the development and implementation of the COVID testing laboratory. And that’s just a few.”

He adds: “Seeing a news article about research that was going on at Biodesign always gave me a very deep sense of pride. And it still does. I looked at my various responsibilities as supporting the research staff so they could carry out their projects. It makes me proud knowing that, in my own small way, I supported the research through my endeavors.”