Open Positions

Job Postings

Interested in joining our community?

DREAM Project Manager Lead

The AI-Driven, Rapid, Experimental Automation Machine (DREAM) Cloud Lab for Protein Engineering aims to be a national user facility that will accelerate the engineering of proteins for a range of important biotechnology applications spanning manufacturing, materials, medicine, waste recycling, agriculture, food, mining and more. Through creating and operating an automated cell-free protein synthesis and characterization wet-lab, connected through an AI-directed protein design-build-test-learn framework, DREAM will enable users from across the U.S. to engineer custom proteins in rapid, automated, accessible and reliable steps instead of the months to years required with current practices. DREAM will be housed with the SynBio Foundry in the Northwestern Center for Synthetic Biology (NU CSB), a world-renowned center for engineering impactful biotechnologies.

DREAM is seeking a full-time Project Manager Lead who will work in close partnership with the Node Director, Professor Julius Lucks, to manage the budget, schedule, and scope of the DREAM project. This role will be responsible for developing, implementing, and managing the Node’s Project Execution Plan, a comprehensive document that defines project governance, development approaches and tailoring, stakeholder engagement and communications, scope, schedule, cost strategy, risk and issue management, compliance requirements, and related information.

The Project Manager Lead will also play an active role in addressing scientific, engineering, and management challenges to increase DREAM’s operational efficiency and scale. The position will help drive seamless execution across several core areas, including cell-free protein synthesis, wet lab workflows, robotic automation, computational protein design, data infrastructure, and biosafety/biosecurity systems. The Project Manager Lead will supervise DREAM’s scientific and computational staff and collaborate closely with NU CSB faculty leads, trainees, and staff across core areas to track progress, coordinate activities, and ensure achievement of project milestones. The ideal candidate combines expertise in cell-free synthetic biology, protein engineering, and experience with machine learning with strong formal project management expertise, enabling them to work across multidisciplinary teams to build and scale DREAM.

External Applicants Apply Here Internal Applicants Apply Here

DREAM Postdoctoral Researcher - Lucks Lab

We are seeking a creative and enthusiastic postdoctoral researcher to lead a new project on AI-directed engineering of cell-free biosensors using automated wet-lab approaches as part of the AI-Driven, Rapid, Experimental Automation Machine (DREAM) Cloud Lab for Protein Engineering at Northwestern University. Our laboratory has pioneered the development of cell-free biosensor technologies that can detect compounds in applications including environmental contaminant detection, food quality measurement, agricultural compound detection and human health diagnostics. In this project we are taking the next step to develop high-throughput protein biosensor engineering to identify biosensors for an expanded range of applications, and optimize them for field use.

Position Details