His research is centered on metabolic engineering of microorganisms to produce biofuels and chemicals from renewable biomass. Jin aims to identify, characterize, and engineer beneficial genetic strands to make the production of target products, such as biofuels, more efficient. He will bring a metabolic engineering perspective to RIPE. Systems-level genetic perturbations and fine control of expression levels will be necessary to maximize the desired phenotypes in plants. He will evaluate designed metabolic pathways using photosynthetic algae as a model.