Aerial Mycelium Process Development
Ecovative Design
2023–2026
Turned experimental aerial mycelium growth into a repeatable, manufacturable cultivation process. Owned process development end to end — media design, pre-colonization optimization, and aerial growth-phase control — and built the instrumentation behind it: custom sensors and microcontrollers feeding real-time data acquisition, with closed-loop feedback holding environmental setpoints (temperature, CO₂, airflow, mist rate). Contributed to a platform with observability over 25 real-time conditions and AI-model-informed decisions, improving the reliability and repeatability of the controlled process. The work led to co-inventorship on a patent covering the growth media compositions and environmental conditions.
Mycelium Cultivation Process Development Closed-loop Control Instrumentation Real-time Sensing Data Acquisition Patent
Partner Technology Transfer & Field Process Engineering
Ecovative Design
2023–2026
Scaled the aerial mycelium process to outside partners — transferring it to domestic and international growers and standing up production at their facilities (Ontario, Canada; Kennett Square, PA; Ammerzoden, Netherlands). Ran full technology transfer — process recipes, environmental control programs, and sensing/control systems — plus operations training and hands-on troubleshooting, often taking direct control of partner lines during start-up. Built data pipelines to ingest partner-facility data into internal systems and models, closing a tight bench-to-scale feedback loop. Karl led a Pennsylvania site's conversion from agaricus mushroom production to full mycelium production within a year, resolved a novel contamination event, trained operators in their primary language, and authored documentation that outlasted each engagement.
Technology Transfer Field Process Engineering Operations Training Data Pipelines International Partners Scale-up
Quantitative MRI for Tumor Treatment Response
Weill Cornell Medical College / NYU
2020–2023
Built and validated novel MRI methods to measure cellular water exchange and treatment response in glioma models without a biopsy. As first author in Scientific Reports, Karl showed that a two-flip-angle DCE-MRI approach can quantify intracellular water lifetime (τᵢ), yielding a metabolic biomarker that correlates negatively with FDG-PET uptake — bridging imaging physics, computational modeling, and translational cancer biology.
DCE-MRI Pharmacokinetic Modeling Cancer Biology Quantitative Imaging Scientific Reports
Image Texture Analysis & Reproducibility in Preclinical MRI
Weill Cornell Medical College
2021–2023
Quantified how image resolution affects the reliability of texture features derived from pharmacokinetic parameter maps — a reproducibility problem for radiomics. As first author in Tomography, Karl demonstrated that 3D isotropic resolution is critical for reproducible radiomics analysis, informing how preclinical imaging protocols are standardized and making quantitative biomarkers more robust across studies.
Radiomics Image Analysis Reproducibility 7T MRI Preclinical Imaging Tomography
Active Contrast Encoding (ACE) MRI Development
NYU / Weill Cornell
2020–2022
Helped develop and validate ACE-MRI, a method for simultaneous estimation of contrast-agent kinetics and tissue relaxation parameters, enabling more efficient characterization of the tumor microenvironment than conventional DCE-MRI. Karl's contributions were presented at multiple ISMRM annual meetings and published in a collaborative journal article.
ACE-MRI Method Development Tumor Microenvironment ISMRM Collaboration