R Cooper Baer (“R” or “Cooper”) received his bachelor’s degree from Skidmore College, where he conducted research in the lab of Sylvia McDevitt on mechanisms of heavy metal resistance in bacteria. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in microbiology from Boston University in the lab of James Galagan. His doctoral research focused on high-throughput sequencing enabled discovery and directed evolution engineering of bacterially-derived biosensors for human health biomarkers. Prior to joining Caravel, R was at the Chicago area startup Stemloop Inc, where he worked to develop protein and nucleic acid based point-of-use assays for detecting lead contamination in drinking water using cell-free protein expression technology.

R was born and grew up in Connecticut, where he developed a love of reading, music, and birding. He enjoys biking, the beach, and biking to the beach, and his favorite travel destination is San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.