Amyris
Jeff Kunkel has held various roles in the biotechnology industry since 2012. From 2012 to 2014, they were a Research Assistant at Santa Clara University's Asuri Lab, where they used kinetic and structural spectroscopic assays to study the role of molecular confinement on structure and function of proteins encapsulated in hydrogels. Jeff also trained and supervised a fellow undergraduate student and published a first author peer reviewed journal article.
From 2014 to 2016, Jeff Kunkel worked at Genentech as a Pilot Plant Technician, where they executed process development experiments with bacterial culture processes. This included cleaning, sterilization, batching, and inoculation of bioreactors, preparing media and solutions, performing cell counts, operating harvest equipment, monitoring process trends, process and equipment troubleshooting, and experiment data recording and collection.
Since 2016, Jeff Kunkel has been employed at Amyris, where they have held the roles of Process Engineer 3, Bioprocess Development Tech Lead / Process Engineer 2, and Bioprocess Development Associate 3. In these roles, they have aided in scheduling to ensure department achieved quarterly and yearly goals, managed day to day scheduling of team to ensure experiments were following schedule, organized the team to ensure daily tasks are completed timely and efficiently, identified areas to improve efficiency and implemented 5S principles to make workflow more efficient, and trained new team members to bring them up to speed and ensure standardization of operations.
Jeff Kunkel attended Junipero Serra High School from 2006 to 2010. Jeff then went on to Santa Clara University, where they earned a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering in 2014 and a Master's Degree in Bioengineering in 2016.