Boston University’s 11th President, Melissa Gilliam
On her first day in office as President, Melissa Gilliam visited the Rajen Kilachand Center for Integrated Life Sciences & Engineering and met with select faculty, including ENG’s David Boas and Mo Khalil.

We had the pleasure of discussing with President Gilliam various functional neuroimaging research projects utilizing functional magnet resonance imaging (fMRI) and functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). I was wearing our latest fNIRS system during the discussion to emphasize how fNIRS is capturing measures of brain function while subjects engage in natural activities.
–David Boas
Mo Khalil shared the origin story and vision of the Biological Design Center to cultivate a new, multidisciplinary environment for synthetic biology research and eductation.
Among other things, President Gilliam got a first-hand view of our automation technologies, including our lab’s eVOLVER continuous culture platform, lamenting that cell culture wasn’t as fun back in the day!
–Mo Khalil
The full photo essay can be seen at BU Today.
Banner photo by Jackie Ricciardi