Dr. Neda Fakhimi is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Carnegie Institution for Science. She studied Chemical Engineering at the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Iran. She obtained a Master’s in Chemical Engineering-Biotechnology at the University of Tehran, Iran. Later, she did a joint PhD in Chemical Engineering-Biotechnology at the University of Tehran, Iran, and in Biosciences and Agri-food Sciences at the University of Cordoba, Spain. In 2019, she graduated from both universities with a dual PhD degree. In her first postdoc, she worked with Dr. David Gonzalez-Ballester at Prof. Emilio Fernandez’s laboratory, in Spain, and after one year, she moved to Prof. Arthur Grossman's laboratory at Carnegie Institution for Science, USA, for her second postdoctoral position.

Arthur Grossman has been a Staff Scientist at The Carnegie Institution for Science since 1982 and holds a courtesy appointment as Professor in the Department of Biology at Stanford University. He has performed research across fields ranging from plant biology, microbiology, marine biology, ecology, genomics, engineering and photosynthesis and initiated large-scale algal genomics by leading the Chlamydomonas genome project (sequencing of the genome coupled to transcriptomics). During his tenure at Carnegie, he mentored more than fifteen PhD students and approximately 50 post-doctoral fellows (many of whom have become successful independent scientists at both major universities and in industry). In 2002, he received the Darbaker Prize (Botanical Society of America) for work on microalgae; in 2009, received the Gilbert Morgan Smith Medal (National Academy of Sciences) for his publications on marine and freshwater algae; and in 2024, received the ASPB Lawrence Bogorad Prize for excellence in plant biology. He was recently elected to the National Academy of Science. He also gave the Arnon endowed lecture on photosynthesis in Berkeley in March of 2017, has given numerous plenary lectures and received a number of fellowships throughout his career. He has been Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of Phycology and has served on the editorial boards of many well-respected biological journals.