Jason T Kaelber, Ph.D.

Prof. Kaelber is the director of the RCNF since 2017. He has hands-on experience in all aspects of the cryoEM workflow, from cell culture to software development. He trained in cryoEM at the National Center for Macromolecular Imaging under Prof. Wah Chiu. Independent research in the Kaelber lab takes a structural biology approach to developing improved viruses for therapeutic applications and to understanding the origins of viral life. At the RCNF, Prof. Kaelber has facilitated discovery for researchers from biotechnology companies both large and small, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, diverse colleges & universities, federal research institutions, and many Rutgers investigators. He serves on the university’s Core Facility Advisory Committee.

Ashley D. Bernstein, Ph.D.

Dr. Ashley Bernstein has been a staff scientist with the RCNF since 2024. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Rutgers in 2024 and her B.S. in Chemistry from Stony Brook University in 2017.

She has extensive experience in solid-state NMR (ssNMR). Her doctoral work in Prof. Andrew Nieuwkoop’s lab was on using ssNMR to investigate interfacial systems, including lipids. Since joining the RCNF, she has become skilled in vitrification, data collection, and data processing for Cryo-EM. She also she helps the facility run smoothly, through training and troubleshooting forfacility users, as well as handling external academic and industrial users samples. Dr. Bernstein has been a member of the ACS since 2014.