Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
Emma Chory leads a lab working at the intersection of directed evolution, chromatin biology, synthetic biology, and lab automation, building platforms that evolve biomolecules quickly and at scale.
Training
Emma earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from Northeastern University and an MS (2014) and PhD (2018) in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University. Her PhD with Gerald Crabtree at Stanford studied chromatin remodeling and nucleosome turnover. Earlier, she worked with James Bradner at Harvard Medical School on histone-modifying inhibitors for MLL-rearranged leukemia. She completed her postdoctoral training at MIT with Kevin Esvelt and Jim Collins, combining continuous evolution with robotics.
Appointments
- Assistant Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University
- Member, Duke Center for Advanced Genomic Technologies
- Duke Science and Technology Scholar
- Affiliated faculty, University Program in Genetics and Genomics
- Affiliated faculty, Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Teaching
- BME 406L / 706L Biotechnology Design II
- BME 590 The Art of Automated Discovery
Selected honors
- Beckman Young Investigator, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Foundation (2026)
- Hartwell Biomedical Research Award, The Hartwell Foundation (2025)
- Hypothesis Fund awardee
- SLAS Innovation Award (2022)
- Ruth L. Kirschstein Postdoctoral Fellow, NIH / NCI
- Hanna H. Gray Fellowship Semi-Finalist, HHMI
- Ruth L. Kirschstein Predoctoral Fellowship
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
Contact
CIEMAS Room 2353b
101 Science Drive, Durham, NC
(919) 684-8196