Austin Comer
Credentials: B.S. Chemical Engineering, University of Texas – Austin B.A. Economics, University of Texas – Austin
Position title: PhD Chemical Engineering - 2018
Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group
BIOGRAPHY
Austin grew up in Houston, Texas. He graduated from The University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in chemical engineering and a B.A. in economics in December of 2012 and joined the Pfleger lab in the Fall of 2013 as a graduate student in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. Austin is a National Science Foundation graduate research fellowship program (NSF GRFP) fellow, a Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering Dalke-Hougan fellow, and a trainee in the Biotechnology Training Program (BTP) at The University of Wisconsin – Madison.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Austin worked on improving the feedstocks used in industrial bioprocesses. Specifically, he completed an economic analysis on the viability of C1 and C2 carbon sources as alternatives to sugar-based feedstocks. In addition, Austin engineered the cyanobacterium Synnechoccocus PCC 7002 for increased glycogen yields for the purpose of producing a cyanobacterial media that could be used in an industrial process.