Eric Jakobsson, Ph.D., is a faculty member in the department of Molecular and Integrative Physiology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He also holds appointments at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and the Beckman Institute. His research uses computational simulation and bioinformatics in the areas of computer-aided design of components for nanodevices, structure of biological membranes, structure-function relationships in biological and synthetic ion channels, computer-aided drug research, comparative genomics of microbes, use of technology to introduce advances in biology and chemistry education.