Plants are increasingly vulnerable to environmental stressors—such as pathogen infection, drought, and heat—from climate change. These challenges threaten global food security and limit the carbon sequestration potential of plants. Dr. Ellen Rim's research goal is to sustainably enhance plant productivity and resilience through protein engineering. The Rim lab engineers proteins involved in plant immune and hormone signaling pathways using directed evolution in high-throughput single cell systems. Directed evolution is a synthetic biology approach that enables rapid development of proteins with novel or improved functions. They combine this approach with machine learning, which allows them to learn from large datasets generated during the directed evolution process. Engineered proteins are then introduced into plants to enhance crop yields and climate resilience.