Mikael O. Ellingson
Columbia,USA
Summary
Recent PhD graduate with expertise in Chemical Engineering. Known for a strong work ethic, deep knowledge of the field, and attention to detail. Committed to making meaningful contributions and being a strong member of a team.
Overview
7
7
years of professional experience
Work History
Academic Tutor — Chemical Engineering & STEM
Momentum Scholars
01.2026 - Current
- Provided instruction in chemical engineering topics including thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, heat and mass transfer, and materials engineering
- Communicated complex concepts clearly to diverse audiences
- Effectively coordinated and communicated with a team of professionals
PhD Scientist
Johns Hopkins University
01.2021 - 01.2025
- Researching Colloidal Interactions under Prof. Bevan
- Drug Delivery Coatings across Biological Barriers
- Wrote 4 peer reviewed publications
- Collaborated with U. Colorado to synthesize and measure polymer brushes
- Measured multivalent dynamic covalent bonds by boronic acids and mucin
- Designed and constructed microfluidic particle adhesion flow-cell experiments
- Modelled drug transport across mucus to provide inform 10× better designs
- Polyethylene glycol (PEG) brush interactions
- Measured and modeled brushes 100× more precise than common techniques
- Mentored two scientists to become experts in colloidal science
- Designing μ-gravity Oil & Water Emulsion Experiments
- Collaborated with NASA contractors to design space-station experiments
- Designed and tested formulations for a micro-gravity experiment on the ISS
- PFAS Forever Chemicals and Polymer Brushes
- Accelerated 20× TBs of microscopy data analysis
- Measured particle-wall interactions to infer adsorption & depletion
- Secretary of the Graduate Student Liaison Committee
- Maintained efficient meetings with detailed notes
- Informed a community of 200 graduate students of events with social media
Chemical Scientist (UG)
University of Minnesota
01.2019 - 01.2020
- Synthesizing Drug Molecules under Prof. Pomerantz
- Increased yields by c. 20% using conditions from chemistry papers in German
- Accelerated a key reaction step from 12-hours to 30-minutes
- Synthesized molecules with 10× stronger binding to cancer-implicated proteins
- Contributed to 2 peer reviewed publications
Education
PhD - Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD12-2025
BS - Chemical Engineering with distinction, Chemistry Minor
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN05-2021
Skills
Research & Technical Expertise
- Materials Engineering
- Colloidal Interactions
- Synthetic Chemistry
- Organic Chemistry
- Fluid Mechanics
- Heat and Mass Transfer
- Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics
- Process Thermodynamics
- Finite Element Analysis
Quantitative & Analytical Skills
- Statistical Analysis
- Calculus (Integral, Differential, Multivariable, Linear Algebra)
- Data Management
Programming & Computational Skills
- Object-Oriented Programming
- Program Debugging
- Basic Circuit Analysis and Troubleshooting
Teaching & Mentoring
- Communicating complex topics to a diverse audience of learners
Languages
English
German
(programming) FORTRAN, C/C++, MatLab, Python, R
Timeline
Academic Tutor — Chemical Engineering & STEM
Momentum Scholars
01.2026 - Current
PhD Scientist
Johns Hopkins University
01.2021 - 01.2025
Chemical Scientist (UG)
University of Minnesota
01.2019 - 01.2020
BS - Chemical Engineering with distinction, Chemistry Minor
University of Minnesota
PhD - Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Johns Hopkins University
Peer-Reviewed Publications
- 2026 Under Review “Virus-Mimetic Drug Particle Coatings: pH-Tunable Multivalent Dynamic Covalent Bonds with Mucus barriers.”
- 2026 RSC Soft Matter “Drug & Virus Transport across Biological Barriers: Interactions, Diffusion, Partitioning, Permeability, and Selectivity.” (DOI)
- 2025 ACS Macromolecules. “kT-Scale Polymer Brush Interactions: Brownian Collisions between Aqueous Polyethylene Glycol Layers” (DOI)
- 2024 RSC Soft Matter. “Interfacial Colloidal Diffusion with & without Adsorbed Polymers.” (DOI)
- 2022 Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. “A Structure-based Design Approach for Generating High Affinity BRD4 D1-Selective Chemical Probes.” (DOI)
- 2020 Angewandte Chemie. “Selective N-Terminal BET Bromodomain Inhibitors by Targeting Non-Conserved Residues and Structured Water Displacement.” (DOI)
- 2025 Thesis Defense. “Designing Colloidal Interactions, Dynamics and Transport across Biological Barriers”
- 2025 Mid-Atlantic Soft Matter Symposium “kT-scale Polymer Brush Interactions.”
- 2023 ACS Coll. Surf. Sci. Symposium. “Measuring & Modelling Colloidal Energy & Diffusivity landscapes in Interfacial Geometries.”
Teaching & Mentorship
- 2025 Judge for Senior Design class presentations; guided undergraduate students on describing a process design with thermodynamic, fluid dynamic and economic analyses.
- 2024 Teacher’s Assistant for Colloids and Nanoparticles; advised graduate level students on writing detailed reports on current research in the colloidal/surface interaction literature.
- 2022 Teacher’s Assistant for Undergraduate Thermodynamics; advised and tutored UG students on the principles of thermodynamics in Chemical Engineering plants.
Programs
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SLURM, Blender, git, NeoVim, gdb, SolidWorks