Dr. Mona Minkara is an associate professor in the Department of Bioengineering and an affiliate faculty in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Northeastern where she heads the COMBINE (COmputational Modeling for BioINterface Engineering) Lab.
Dr. Minkara’s research uses computational methods to study biological interfaces at the atomic and molecular scale. Her group applies molecular dynamics simulations, molecular docking, homology modeling, and Monte Carlo simulations to investigate pulmonary surfactant, the protein-lipid substance that lines the alveoli in the lungs, and more recently the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.
As an undergraduate at Wellesley College, she worked with Dr. Mala Radhakrishnan studying how drugs bind to HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase, then spent a year researching there under a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant after earning her BA in 2009. In 2010, she began graduate studies at the University of Florida on an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, working with Dr. Kenneth M. Merz Jr. and Dr. Erik Deumens to design an inhibitor for Helicobacter pylori urease, an enzyme that helps bacteria survive in the stomach, via molecular dynamics simulations. After earning her PhD in Chemistry in 2015, she joined Dr. J. Ilja Siepmann’s lab as a postdoc at the University of Minnesota’s Chemical Theory Center, using Monte Carlo simulations to study surfactant interfacial properties, the surface tension of water, and the miscibility gap of supercritical fluids. In 2016, she received a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
Throughout her career, her work has led to numerous publications in high-impact journals, presentations, and posters at national and local conferences, and received several awards recognizing her achievements. Dr. Minkara is also an active member of the American Chemical Society where she serves on the Chemists with Disabilities committee and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, where she is a member of the Disabilities OutReach and Inclusion Community. Dr. Minkara is also one of the only blind professors in the field of bioengineering, and she seeks to increase accessibility in STEM.
In The News
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‘We need blind scientists.’ Northeastern professor tells United Nations about her ‘unseen advantage’ in inspirational speech
The world needs more scientists with “the unseen advantage,” says Mona Minkara, assistant professor of bioengineering and affiliate faculty of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern. -
People with disabilities have been locked out of spaceflight. But that is changing.
Mona Minkara experienced zero-gravity on a parabolic flight funded by AstroAccess, a nonprofit initiative to make spaceflight inclusive for all.