Nils Averesch

Dr. Nils Averesch is Research Engineer with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Co-Investigator of the NASA-sponsored 'Center for Utilization of Biological Engineering in Space' (CUBES). Supported by the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative (NGI), Nils works on enabling the biomanufacturing of consumable and durable goods from the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane.More specifically, Nils' work comprises the rational design and optimization of biochemical pathways for increased carbon-efficiency and construction of microbial cell factories for production of advanced polymeric biomaterials. By developing circular bioproduction platforms that can support human long-duration space-exploration missions, Nils' aims to transform Earth's chemical industry into a sustainable bioeconomy “on the way” to new frontiers.Before joining Stanford, Nils was a contract researcher at NASA Ames Research Center (California) as Associate Scientist with Universities Space Research Association (USRA), where he led the Synthetic Biology task. Nils holds a PhD in Metabolic Engineering from the University of Queensland (Australia) and an engineer’s degree (Dipl. Ing.) in Biochemical Engineering, from the Technical University of Dortmund (Germany).