Nina Stawski

Joint BioEnergy Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Papers

Total Citations

166

H-Index

About

Nina Stawski is a pioneering researcher in laboratory automation and biofoundry engineering, whose work has fundamentally reshaped how biologists interact with robotic systems. Her key research areas include open-source laboratory automation, cloud-enabled diagnostics, and high-level programming languages for biology. Stawski’s major contributions center on democratizing access to robotic experimentation: she developed PaR-PaR (2012, 61 citations), a biology-friendly programming language that allows researchers to automate complex DNA assembly and cloning tasks without specialized engineering skills. She then extended this into PR-PR (2014, 47 citations), a cross-platform system enabling protocol standardization and sharing across different robotic hardware. In a striking demonstration of applied automation, Stawski created ScanDrop (2014, 58 citations), an all-in-one platform integrating droplet microfluidics, portable microscopy, and cloud-based control for rapid detection of E. coli in drinking water. This work showcases her ability to bridge fundamental automation tools with real-world environmental monitoring. Her impact is evident in the sustained adoption of her open-source platforms by synthetic biology laboratories worldwide, making her a key figure in the movement toward accessible, reproducible, and scalable biological experimentation.