Joey J. Gardner

I hold a B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical and Biological Engineering, the latter completed under Dr. Nanette R. Boyle at Colorado School of Mines. My thesis used agent-based modeling and flux balance analysis to interrogate how Trichodesmium erythraeum colonies coordinate nitrogen and CO₂ fixation simultaneously — a problem that required reasoning about individual cellular decisions, emergent population behavior, and the metabolic constraints that bound both.

Since then my work has moved across the applied spectrum: nitrogen fixation for industrial agriculture, metabolism-centric drug target discovery for autoimmune disorders, untargeted metabolomics, microbiome research, and the production software infrastructure that makes those kinds of analyses possible at scale. I've led and mentored interdisciplinary teams across those domains and shipped products that sit at the intersection of bioinformatics, data infrastructure, and commercial research use.

The throughline in my work is strategic more than technical. Most of what makes multiomics analysis difficult is not a missing algorithm — it's unclear ownership of analytical decisions, preprocessing choices made invisibly, governance of what counts as a valid result, and the incentives that determine whether scientific infrastructure gets built to last or built to demo. I write and advise on all of these: platform architecture, analytical governance, cross-domain interpretation, the real versus marketed role of LLMs in scientific development, and the organizational conditions that make good science possible or preempt it.

I also write about how products actually reach the people who need them. Good science dies on the vine without product-market fit, and the infrastructure around a scientific tool — the documentation, the deployment story, the analytical transparency — is often what determines whether it gets used at all.

In my other life, I'm trying to build a non-profit to provide fresh produce for at-risk communities in Boston in a way that actually saves the city money. Right now, we see a ton of food gone to waste and a lot of people hungry; it's our goal to treat food as a human right and receiving it is natural and dignified. We focus mostly on the logistics of sourcing food that would go to waste and distributing it in places where food deserts exist. We save on disposal costs, we feed the hungry, and less food goes to waste. Triple threat. The organization is called the Fresh Start Food Network.

I've volunteered for a long time - it's a tradition that my grandma, mom, dad, and sister instilled in me - and grew up on a ranch with ~12-16 horses. We used to operate something called Aspen Hollow Young Ranchers, which sought to give an alternative therapeutic environment for underserved communities like adolescents in residential treatment and folks with PTSD. They got to interact with horses (theory being that they're prey animals but also massive, so good for folks to figure out their own emotions).

I'm also part of the wild underworld of youtube-influenced DIY, active at a book club, tend towards camping/hiking/outdoorsy things, and I like all sorts of nerdy/horror things (except video games... strangely). I'll write about my house/interior design, books and my diverse opinions, and the excursions I go on. I have another site where I post other things I write.