Mona Minkara

Minkara was born in the 1980s and was the oldest daughter of Fida Minkara and Samer Minkara who were immigrants from Tripoli, Lebanon, to the United States. She grew up in Takoma Park, Maryland, and in the greater Boston, Massachusetts, metropolitan area, completing a public school education. As a child, Minkara learned both the Arabic language and English.[1]

As a youth, Minkara and her family traveled to Lebanon from time-to-time. During one such trip, she was first diagnosed with macular degeneration with cone-rod dystrophy, a condition that ultimately led to her blindness.[1]

Minkara earned a Bachelor of Arts at Wellesley College in 2009, majoring in chemistry and in Middle Eastern studies.[2] She subsequently completed a Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Florida in 2015. Minkara's doctoral advisors were Kenneth M. Merz Jr. and Erik Deumens, and her graduate dissertation was entitled "Design of a Novel Inhibitor for Helicobacter Pylori Urease".[3]

Following completion of her doctorate, Minkara was a post-doctoral fellow in the Chemical Theory Center at the University of Minnesota.[1] There she worked closely with Professor J. Ilja Siepmann. During this time, Minkara recruited teams of students to act as her research assistants.[4]

In August 2019, Minkara became a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Northeastern University. She also is an affiliate faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.[5]

Minkara's sister Sara Minkara worked for the United States Department of State and was later appointed by United States President Joseph Biden to be Special Advisor on International Disability Rights.[6] Minkara also has a brother Ibrahim Minkara.[1]

Minkara's research uses computational methods to provide insight into the complex nature of the pulmonary surfactant system. In particular, she evaluates the structure and function of the key proteins that compose the pulmonary surfactant system and the interaction of those proteins with viral pathogens and other foreign substances.[7]

As a representative example of her research, in a 2022 scientific publication, Minkara reported the basis of how simple point mutations of the pulmonary surfactant protein SP-D can acquire significant anti-viral properties by enhancing the binding of the protein to the trimannose molecule that mediates the interaction of the protein and the virus.[8]

Minkara leads the COMBINE lab[lower-alpha 1] at Northeastern University. The lab has as its objective the use of computer simulation to enhance understanding of biological interfaces and to explore means of using the understanding to develop improved therapies and diagnostic procedures.[9]

As of 2023 Minkara serves as a director of the advocacy organization Science in Braille.[10] Minkara sometimes speaks to various audiences on matters related to visually impaired scientists and engineers and uses the motto "Vision is more than sight".[11] Among her activities in this regard, Minkara spoke at the United Nations about the special perspectives that visually impaired people can offer as scientists and about the cause of the Science in Braille organization.[12]

As of 2023, Minkara is a program co-leader of a Science Education Partnership Award from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. The effort funded by the award makes available assistive technologies to further education in the sciences to students at the secondary school level and above.[13]

In 2016, Minkara led a team to devise a "Blind STEM curriculum" to provide enhanced education in science, technology, education and mathematics for visually impaired students.[2]

Minkara has stated:[7]

"Academic science is not inclusive because we do not understand our differences. Not understanding is OK, but not acting to improve understanding is not OK. Everyone needs to see people with disabilities as capable, even if they are capable in different ways."

The chemical sciences being based on the study of objects and phenemena too small to see, Minkara has taken the position that blind scientists bring a fresh perspective to the chemical sciences.[4]

External media
Media links for Mona Minkara
Images
Photograph of Minkara, from Northeastern University
Audio
2022 Interview with Minkara on NPR
Video
"Who is Mona Minkara?", a YouTube video

Minkara received a Ford Foundation Fellowship from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine for her post-doctoral research at the University of Minnesota.[14]

In 2019, Minkara received the Holman Prize from the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired.[15]

A representative (nonexhaustive) set of Minkara's publications in scholarly journals as of 2023 includes:

• Deng, Li, and Mona S. Minkara. “Elucidating the Enhanced Binding Affinity of a Double Mutant SP-D With Trimannose on the Influenza a Virus Using Molecular Dynamics.” Computational and Structural Biotechnology Journal, vol. 20, Elsevier BV, Jan. 2022, pp. 4984–5000.
• Koone, J.C.; Dashnaw, C.M.; Alonzo, E.; Iglesias, M.A.; Patero, K.S.; Lopez, J.; Zhang, S.Y.; Zechmann, B.; Cook, N.; Minkara, M.; Supalo, C.A.; Wedler, H.B.; Guberman-Pfeffer, M.; Shaw, B.F. "Data for all: tactile graphics that light up with picture-perfect resolution." Science Advances 2022, 8 (33).
• Minkara, Mona S.; Weaver, Michael N.; Gorske, Jim; Bowers, Clifford R.; Merz, Jr., Kenneth M. "Implementation of Protocols To Enable Doctoral Training in Physical and Computational Chemistry of a Blind Graduate Student." Journal of Chemical Education. 2015, vol. 92, 8, 1280–1283.

• Planes, Trains and Canes, a Youtube travel documentary channel hosted by Minkara