Brian Pfleger ‘00

Brian Pfleger (B.S. ChE ‘00) recently joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. After graduating from Cornell, he completed a Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of California-Berkeley and a post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Michigan.

His research interests are in the field of synthetic biology. His group focuses on engineering microorganisms to create novel compounds, such as biofuels, pharmaceuticals and commodity chemicals. He also acts as the faculty advisor for the UW-Madison iGEM team, which performs its own synthetic biology research. The team competes each year in the annual iGEM jamboree, which last year attracted 130 teams from around the world.

An avid hockey fan and goaltender in several local hockey leagues while at Cornell, Pfleger still plays ice hockey with UW intramural teams and a local pick-up group. Despite having left Cornell over a decade ago, Pfleger remains a Cornell sports fan, even rooting for them in Cornell-UW basketball game in the NCAA tournament two years ago.