I'm the first student in my family to go to college. So I didn't grow up necessarily around a lot of scientists per se. But getting to work with really, really good teachers at my high school was really pivotal for me.”

Dr. Josh Atkinson is an NSF post-doctoral fellow spending a year in Denmark to study microbial electrochemistry.

In our conversation on November 4th, 2022, Josh talked about being in part of the first generation of synthetic biologists and the first in his family to go to college. Josh credits great high school teachers who introduced him to research and the countless informal conversations he had with his PhD advisor for sparking his curiosity about science and the field of synthetic biology in particular.

After graduating high school, Josh pursued an undergraduate degree in microbiology at the University of Michigan and his graduate work in synbio at Rice University in Texas. 

His postdoctoral work studies giant bacteria that are both visible to the naked eye and can function as natural wires in lake sediment.