Contact the program director if your company would like to schedule an introductory meeting to learn more about the BioCAP and Co-Op Program and becoming a partner.
General inquiries from students and companies can be sent to biocap@ucsd.edu.
Director, Corporate Relations and Professional Development
mhoon@ucsd.edu
Melissa is the staff director for the School of Biological Sciences Co-Op Program and Corporate Affiliates Program (BioCAP). She engages students, alumni, and industry partners in an effort to prepare students for impactful careers and to build a diverse talent pipeline from academia to the life sciences industry. Melissa has worked in higher education in academic program development, fundraising, and communications for more than 10 years and joined UC San Diego in 2018.
As a first-generation college graduate, she is passionate about collaborating with industry partners to bring job opportunities and hands-on training to students of all backgrounds and identities, with the goal of students cultivating their sense of belonging in the life sciences community. The most fulfilling part of her job is having the opportunity to see students and alumni grow into leaders in the life sciences industry and progress through careers that they find meaningful while they also make significant impact.
Professor, Molecular Biology
Joe is a Professor of Molecular Biology and serves as the faculty advisor to the Co-Op Program. He is also the co-founder of Linnaeus Bioscience, Inc. He received B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Honors Biology from the University of Illinois, Champaign. He earned his PhD from Harvard Medical School where he studied cell division, outer membrane stress responses, antibiotic mechanism of action and protein secretion. As a postdoc at UC San Diego, he studied cytoskeletal proteins involved in plasmid DNA segregation.
He joined the UC San Diego faculty in 2003 where his research has focused on using cell biological tools to study bacterial cell growth, DNA replication, cell division, outer membrane biogenesis, and the mechanisms by which antibiotics target these essential cellular processes. His lab discovered the phage nucleus, a compartment formed by many bacteriophages that replicate in Pseudomonas. Joe and School of Biological Sciences Dean Kit Pogliano, PhD, developed Bacterial Cytological Profiling (BCP) technology that provides a rapid method for screening for antibiotics against multidrug resistant bacteria and understanding their mechanisms of action.