Pouyan Khakbaz was a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Illinois. His research focused on molecular modeling Rubisco activase for higher plants. For the RIPE project, he investigated Rubisco activase inhibition by nucleotides and sugars. Pouyan earned his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Sharif University of Technology and received his master's degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Irvine. He went on to earn his doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. His work is published in many peer-reviewed journals, including Chemistry and Physics of Lipids, Metabolic Engineering and BBA, Biomembranes.