Why BBL?
Creativity, Communication, Collaboration
Make something new, tell people about it, and get them onboard. Creativity, communication, and collaboration are the guiding principles of education in the BBL. We strive to send every BBL alumnus out into the world prepared to make real, impactful change. Students in the BBL hone their skills in designing, building, and executing new technologies and new investigations. That's why our alumni have gone on to prestigious postdoc and staff positions at major research universities, research centers, and national labs.
A Team of Makers
To put it simply, the BBL is a high tech maker space. Our group is a team of creatively-minded makers motivated by the impact that new technologies can have on our understanding of biology and the world around us. While our research includes both hypothesis-driven and technology development projects, we gravitate towards challenges for which the tools haven't yet been invented. We're also passionate about making these tools accessible to the wider scientific community, which is why we often design and produce open source hardware that can be fabricated by economical and widely available means like 3D printing and laser cutting, and which harness the sensing capabilities we all carry around in our pockets.
Engaged With Our Community
Presenting at national conferences like PITTCON, SciX, SLAS, and others, are a cornerstone of the educational program in the BBL. Sharing what we learn in our lab is one of the most rewarding aspects of our work. For that reason, we aim to send our graduate students and postdocs to conferences early and often. But our community is more than just other scientists. We are actively engaged in community service and outreach via news media and classroom presentations. For example, the BBL leveraged our expertise in 3D printing to play a key role in the reopening exhibit of NMSU's University Museum following the pandemic shut down (Claire Smith's work, shown above). If you know, like we do, that science doesn't happen in a vacuum, then the BBL is a excellent platform from which to engage the wider community.
Having Fun While We're At It
When you have a team of talented creative people who love what they do and enjoy working together you can't confine their creativity only to their experiments, manuscripts, and dissertations. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right, and we have Dry Ice Baby and Chicken Wing to prove that... well... we're doing it right! Maybe you're more interested in contributing to our highly proficient escape room team. Seriously, we're really good at escape rooms! The bottom line is, there's more to life than work, and sometimes that's lost in graduate education. If you're going to spend so much time and energy working in a team trying to create and discover new things, you're better off with a group of folks you can have fun with.