B.S. in Biochemistry, Binghamton Univeristy (Advisor: Sozanne Solmaz)
PhD in Chemistry, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Advisors: Xing Wang and Robert Linhardt)
Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemistry, MIT (Advisor: Barbara Imperiali)
Megan grew up on Long Island, NY and then, initially interested in pursuing medicine, studied biochemistry at Binghamton University. During her undergraduate degree, she realized she had more of a passion for biochemical research and delved into investigating the nuclear pore complex with Dr. Sozanne Solmaz. She then moved on to perform graduate studies in chemistry at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, supervised by Dr. Robert Linhardt and Dr. Xing Wang. There, she worked on myriad of projects towards developing probes for unique biological species and microfluidic methods for intracellular delivery of therapeutic nucleic acids. Subsequently, she pursued postdoctoral studies at MIT under the guidance of Dr. Barbara Imperiali. As a Ruth L. Kirschstein NIH postdoctoral fellow, she developed a platform for the directed evolution of glycan binding proteins. Megan began her appointment as an assistant professor in the Chemistry Department at Brown in 2023.
The Kizer lab at Brown aims to develop glycan-focused tools and technologies towards understanding complex carbohydrates in human health and disease. The development of these tools will leverage techniques such as directed evolution, microfluidics, and nucleic acid nanostructures, and their full realization and application potential requires multidisciplinary engagement across chemistry, biology, and engineering. The lab tackles challenges and answers questions from the carbohydrate perspective in areas such as biosensor development, infectious disease prevention, tissue engineering and beyond.
