Dr. Lulu Qian is a Professor of Bioengineering and an affiliated faculty of Computer Science and Computation & Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. The primary focus of her lab is to advance the theory and practice of engineering molecular systems with intelligent behaviors. Dr. Qian invented DNA-based neural networks that classify complex and noisy molecular information, which provided a proof of concept that rudimentary brain-like behavior can exist in test tube chemistry. Her work on DNA self-assembly pioneered simple ways to create nanostructures with programmable patterns and dimensions comparable to the smallest living cells. Her creation of swarm molecular robots demonstrated how nanomechanical tasks can be carried out autonomously by simple molecules following energy-efficient algorithms. She is a recipient of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Award, the Rozenberg Tulip Award in DNA Computing, the Foresight Institute Feynman Prize in Nanotechnology, the Schmidt Science Polymath Award, and the Feynman Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

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