Her research group works in the area of in vitro synthetic biology, with an interdisciplinary approach of experiments and mathematical modeling. Areas of interest include biomolecular oscillators, feedback systems, and responsive self-assembled materials. Elisa received her Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology under the supervision of Dr. Richard Murray. As a faculty member, she received a UC Regents fellowship, a Hellman fellowship, and an NSF CAREER award. CSHL topic: Prof. Franco will be teaching a module on formulation and validation of mathematical models for molecular circuits, primarily via ordinary differential equations. These techniques are particularly well suited to quantitatively describe gene circuits tested in the TX-TL platform.