© DOMINICK REUTER—PHOTOJOURNALISTFrustrated by microbes that refused to grow during a 10-day visit to his Australian collaborators’ lab in 2012, Cullen Buie attended an emergency lunchtime meeting that ended up reshaping his research. The MIT engineer had wanted to use his team’s 3-D microfluidics tool to determine the effectiveness of bacteria for use in microbial fuel cells by analyzing the properties of their surface membranes. But the recalcitrant microbes left him “twiddling his thumbs.” Buie’s University of Queensland collaborators suggested giving him different E. coli strains to analyze. “They said, ‘Maybe you can distinguish pathogens from nonpathogens in your devices,’” Buie recalls. “We saw huge differences in their responses.” That result started his transition from fuel cells to a deeper focus on microbial physiology.
This detour brought Buie closer to his original intention to major in premed as an undergraduate, as his older sister had. But that early plan had changed before he even started college at Ohio State University, when he visited the university’s office of minority affairs, which suggested that an engineering major could either lead to a later medical degree or provide an alternative career. Then, Buie discovered an engineering summer school with college-level classes offering scholarship money to students who did well. “I signed up for the program on Friday, and it started on Sunday,” he says.
Deciding to stick with engineering, Buie did his PhD on microfluidic electro-osmotic pumps for fuel cells with Juan Santiago at Stanford University, finishing in 2009. He then landed ...
