Michael is a native New Yorker and received his BS in Chemistry from New York University in 2015, where he also got his research start in structural DNA nanotechnology with the late Ned Seeman. Michael received his PhD in Chemistry in 2020 from Stanford, where he worked with Eric Kool to design, synthesize, and explore applications of novel dinucleotide polyphosphate compounds. Michael then moved to Yale, where he was a Life Sciences Research Foundation and PhRMA Foundation postdoctoral fellow with Ron Breaker focusing on RNA engineering and RNA biochemistry. Michael briefly taught medicinal chemistry at the Arnold & Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy at Long Island University before joining Hunter College in the Fall of 2026. Outside of research, Michael enjoys spending family time with his wonderful wife, Jessie, and their incredibly silly son, Zaki.

Le Bao is from Brooklyn, New York. She graduated from Hunter College with a BA in Biological Sciences in 2025. She joined the Mohsen lab as a postbaccalaureate scholar through the New York Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates (NY-RaMP) program and is interested in microbiology.