Buz Barstow, assistant professor, Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering
Academic focus: I’m an applied physicist working on synthetic biology and sustainable energy.
Previous positions: Burroughs-Wellcome Fund CASI fellow, Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, 2014-17; postdoctoral fellow, Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, 2009-14
Academic background: MSci, Department of Physics, Imperial College, 1997-2001; Ph.D., Applied Physics, Cornell University, 2001-09
Last books read: I try to read a lot of stuff at once, and I don’t always finish it. I have a big pile of books by my bed that I’m reading slowly. Right now, it includes Deep Life by Tullis Onstott on the discovery of life below the Earth’s surface that isn’t powered by sunlight that was given to me by my PhD advisor Sol Gruner in physics; Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan; Artemis by Andy Weir; The Grid by Gretchen Bakke on the electrical grid; Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism? by Robert Kuttner; The Perfect Weapon by David E. Sanger on cyber warfare; Higher Calling by Max Leonard on cycling’s obsession with the mountains; and finally Churchill and Orwell: The Fight for Freedom by Tom Ricks.
Also, I have to mention the TV show Star Trek: Discovery, as it recognizes that preeminence of biology in modern science.
What do you do when not working? I really like the endurance sports (cycling, running and swimming), but I like cycling the most because it indulges my passion for tinkering. I think I would be just as happy working on bikes all day as I am riding them.
What gets you out of bed in the morning? The thought that someday not too far in the future, we might solve the climate crisis, and that if I get out of bed my team’s work might play some role in solving it. And then, I’ll be left with the problem of what to do next?
Current research projects? Right now, we’re working on using microbes to store electrical energy; engineering microbes to mine rare earth elements (critical for sustainable energy tech); and trying to understand the genetics of a bridge between biological metabolism and electricity. In the near future, as we add more people, we’ll start working on using microbes to rejuvenate batteries, and on new genetic tools to experimentally map genetic networks at ultra-low cost.
If you had unlimited grant funding, what major problem in your field would you want to solve? It depends when I get it! Cornell has given me the opportunity to do the thing in life that I think is most vitally important right now. So if I had unlimited funds right now, I’d spend them to accelerate all of the research projects that we are doing in the lab. I wouldn’t change a thing.
But, if we get the climate-energy problem solved in my lifetime I’d really like to tackle the problem of using biology to make super materials with amazing rheological, optical and electronic properties in bulk and at ultra-low cost. I’d love to make space elevator that grows itself from orbit down to the ground. I’d also like to make space ships that grow themselves too.
Current outreach/extension projects? I try to always have undergraduates in my lab as they often add a healthy dose of energy and enthusiasm.
What are three adjectives people might use to describe you? That’s a really tough one. You’d have to ask other people. I would like to think that people think I’m a decent person.
Course you’re most looking forward to teaching? I’ll be teaching BEE 3600 in the spring of 2019. I’m really looking forward to teaching about how mathematical and physical principles can be applied to biology.
What most excites you about Cornell CALS? Getting to come back to Cornell after years away was such a great surprise and delight. I always suspected that Cornell was special when I was a Ph.D. student, but I don’t think that I appreciated it as much as I should have. Cornell is such an incredible place for collaboration between amazingly talented people, has the most extensive well-staffed facilities, but it doesn't take itself that seriously.
