I grew up in the Cuyahoga Valley National Park area. I like to climb, code, and lift whenever I can. I used to work at the outdoor adventure center here on campus, so there’s a chance you’ve climbed one of my routes. Beyond those, though, you’ll probably find me with my earbuds in. I’m usually listening to either “10 Hour Box Fan (No Distractions)” from Big Fan or whatever artist I’m stuck in. Currently, those are: FKA Twigs, Maggie Rogers, and Wolf Alice.
I had a rather. . . colorful path to choosing chemical engineering. After dancing around between almost 4 majors my freshman/sophomore years (even double majoring between some of them at points), I landed on chemical engineering because of the support I felt from the department. For better or worse, I’ve extended this explorative trend to my experiences.
I'm generally interested in biological optimizations for sustainable energy and healthcare. I believe innovation lies behind behind fewer, smarter experiements rather than exhaustive experimental campaings only for more figures. More importaintly, however, I believe anyone, regardless of background, can be a scientist or engineer. To this end, I hope to one day lead a research group and teach at an R1 university.
(May 2026 - ??? 2026) Incoming Research Fellow @ University of Wisconsin - Madison
Advisor: Dr. Joel Paulson
(May 2025 - Present) Visiting Research Fellow @ University of Delaware
Advisor: Dr. Aditya Kunajpur
Full time: SU25 || Part time: Present
CPI REU recipient
(Jan 2024 - Present) Undergraduate Researcher @ Ohio State University
Primary Advisor: Blaise Kimmel
Secondary/co-advisor: Joel Paulson @ University of Wisconsin - Madison
(Jan 2025 - May 2025) Product Solutions Intern @ ExxonMobil
Cracking & Light Ends Team
(May 2023 - Aug 2023) Visiting Research Fellow @ University of Pennsylvania
Advisor - Dr. Ani Hsieh
SUNFEST REU recipient
AU25 - (CBE 2345) Computational / Numerical Methods with Dr. Rebecca Harmon
AU25 - (CBE 2200) Mass & Energy Balances with Dr. John Clay/Dr. Lauren Taylor
AU24 - (CBE 5790) Modeling & Simulations with Dr. Jim Rathman
Adomanis, R., Phan, N., Walter, G., & Kimmel, B. R. (n.d.). Modular Nanobody Conjugates with Controlled Topology Using Genetically Encoded Non-canonical Amino Acids. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.11.27.691038v1.full.pdf
Culkins, C*., Adomanis, R.*, Phan, N., Robinson, B., Slaton, E., Lothrop, E., Chen, Y., & Kimmel, B. R. (2024). Unlocking the Gates: Therapeutic Agents for Noninvasive Drug Delivery Across the Blood-Brain Barrier. Molecular Pharmaceutics, acs.molpharmaceut.4c00604. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.4c00604 *Indicates equal contribution
Chen, Y., Clay, N., Phan, N., Lothrop, E., Culkins, C., Robinson, B., Stubblefield, A., Ferguson, A., & Kimmel, B. R. (2024). Molecular Matchmakers: Bioconjugation Techniques Enhance Prodrug Potency for Immunotherapy. Molecular Pharmaceutics, acs.molpharmaceut.4c00867. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.4c00867
Slaton, E. W., Clay, N., Phan, N., & Kimmel, B. R. (2025). Innovations in Yeast Synthetic Biology: Engineered Discovery Systems for Immunotherapy. ACS Synthetic Biology, 14(9), 3293–3305. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.5c00321
Bailey, J., Hu, A., Phan, N., Getman. R., & Kimmel, B. Artificial Intelligence in Chemical Engineering: Protein Design from First Principles to Structural Prediction (Submitted to ACS Engineering)
Dickey, R., Bryan J., Somasundaram, V., Phan, N., Anderson, S., & Kunjapur, A. Discovery of Aryl Alcohol Oxidases for Enhanced Biosynthesis of Aromatic Aldehydes in an Engineered Strain of Escherichia coli
Phan, N., Bailey, J., Tan, T., Chen, T., Adomanis, R., Hu, A., Paulson, J., & Kimmel, B. BOncAAs! A Bayesian Optimization Approach to non-canonical Amino Acid Incorporations (Submission Projection: Jan. 2026)
Bailey, J., Hu, A., Phan, N., Getman, R., & Kimmel, B. R. In Silico Design and Evaluation Of tRNAs via a Hybrid Bayesian Optimization and ROSETTA Framework (Submission Projection: Jan. 2026)
Slaton E., Adomanis R., Phan N., Huggins, S., Bailey, J., Robinson, B., Krivanek, E., & Kimmel, B. R. (Submission Projection: Apr. 2026)
Dickey, R., Bryan J., Somasundaram, V., Phan, N., Anderson, S., & Kunjapur, A. Biocatalytic cascade for the production of L-phenylalanine derived nonstandard amino acids from alcohols
Wyllis, D., Buddhikot, A. , Cunningham, K., Phan, N., Anderson, S., Yang, Z., & Kunjapur, A. Discovery and characterization of an L-threonine transaldolase with enhanced affinity for L-threonine