Boon is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT, working with Dr. Gregory Stephanopoulos. His dissertation focuses on the renewable production of plastic precursor chemicals from agricultural waste feedstock using microbes, such as Baker’s yeast.
Currently, the vast majority of chemicals we use are being produced from fossil resources. In light of environmental sustainability considerations, the use of plant residues to replace petroleum as a feedstock has been gaining more attention recently. Nonetheless, technologies for utilizing these clean, renewable resources require large initial capital investments, and achieving high product yields and productivities from plant residue feedstock at economical costs still remains a crucial challenge. Boon’s research aims to develop an efficient, cost-effective and scalable bioprocess for producing these chemicals in order to offer a competitive alternative to conventional chemical synthesis from fossil resources.
Boon received a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Engineering degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from Johns Hopkins University in 2013. Outside of research, Boon is an ACE certified group fitness instructor, teaching Zumba classes.