Tara Deans is an Associate Professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University. She received her Ph.D. from Boston University in Biomedical Engineering and did her postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University. Her research focuses on building genetic tools to study the mechanisms of stem cell differentiation for the purpose of directing cell fate decisions. She is the recipient of several awards including the NSF CAREER Award, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Award, the NIH Trailblazer Award, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. Deans holds a number of issued patents, some of which have been licensed by biotech companies.