About
Hey, I'm Rita!
Let's design a better world, together.
I’m a molecular biologist, scientific illustrator, and designer based in the Boston, MA area.
Before I became a scientist, I received my B.S. in Product & Material Studies from the University of Oregon in 2014. In my senior year in the program, I took a trip to Milan, Italy to show my work at the world’s largest furniture fair, Salone Del Mobile. It was here that it dawned on me that I was about to embark on a career of making things that were probably all going to end up in a landfill someday. A year later, I returned to school to get my B.S. in molecular biology, with the goal of using biotechnology to help solve the world’s many waste pollution problems.
I went on to work for two as a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado where I helped engineer Pseudomonas putida KT2440 for the upcycling of PET and other plastics. Using biology to tackle material waste and related sustainability problems is my passion, and why I originally made the switch from industrial design to synthetic biology. Following my time at NREL, I received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to study at Montana State University, where I dove deeper into the world of biological plastics upcycling, biochemically characterizing enzymes involved in microbial PET metabolism.
In my time at NREL, I was also involved in a number of projects using my skills as a graphic designer, helping colleagues to communicate a diverse range of work for talks, grants, and publications. I carried this love with me through grad school, and after completing my M.S. in biochemistry in 2022, I now work in the Boston area as a freelance scientific illustrator under the name Scivetica. I miss research though, and am currently seeking work with likeminded individuals who care deeply about the planet and believe in the power of biotechnology to change the world!
In my free time, I love running, playing pickup basketball, reading sci-fi & fantasy, watercolor painting, and teaching my deaf dog Green Bean new sign language tricks.
