Dr. Eric J. Hayden joined the faculty of the Department of Biological Sciences at Boise State University in 2013, after serving as a postdoctoral scholar at both Stanford University and the University of Zurich. His Ph.D. in chemistry is from Portland State University and his undergraduate work, also in chemistry, was completed at Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon. Dr. Hayden's background is in RNA biochemistry, where he has been involved in engineering and evolving functional non-coding RNA molecules. His research combines aspects of biochemistry, synthetic biology and functional genomics, and involves the design and laboratory evolution of RNA in order to discover molecules with potential biomedical and biotechnical applications. His research also contributes to our basic understanding of how life evolves, even from its earliest chemical beginnings.