Kathryn Brink

Kathryn Brink is a postdoctoral scholar in the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), where she works with Megan Palmer and David Relman. Kathryn is a synthetic biologist by training. During her PhD, Kathryn studied bacterial two-component systems (TCSs), signal transduction pathways that bacteria use to sense and respond to changes in their environment. TCSs play important roles in host-pathogen interactions and can be engineered for medical and environmental biosensing applications. In her thesis work, Kathryn developed engineering and screening approaches to discover and characterize the stimuli that activate these pathways.

At CISAC, Kathryn's research focuses on risk management and assessment in biological science and engineering, with the goals of improving the governance of biological research and reducing the risk of its misuse. She investigates factors associated with attention to risk among scientists and engineers and studies risk assessment processes in the life sciences.