Team:Stanford-Brown/Team
Meet our team!
Charles Calvet Junior at Stanford University, half synthetic biologist, half underground electronic music aficionado. He worked primarily on the bioHYDRA project.
Danny Greenberg is a junior studying biology at Brown University. This summer, he worked to optimize gene ligation using the CRATER method.
Daniel Kunin is a Junior at Brown University majoring in Applied Mathematics. He spent the summer working on polystyrene synthesis. As the hairiest and most rugged of the three Dans, he also led the group in a variety of outdoor adventures.
Daniel Xiang is a Junior at Brown University studying Applied Math – Biology concentration. Dan’s primary projects were polystyrene synthesis and modeling.
Erica Lieberman recently graduated from Stanford University with a degree in Bioengineering and was one of the co-captains of the 2015 SB iGEM team. This summer, she worked primarily on P(3HB) synthesis, the lysis system, and general chaos reduction.
Forrest Tran completed his first year at Brown University and is now at Olin College of Engineering. Forrest mainly worked on plastics materials testing and applications, growing cellulose, dissecting squids, and coding the team’s wiki.
Jack Takahashi is a junior at Stanford University majoring in Biology. His main projects this summer included helping develop the CRATER method and researching uses of biOrigami in space.
Kirsten Thompson is a small but mighty junior majoring in Bioengineering at Stanford University. By day, Kirsten terminates unwanted ligation byproducts using the CRATER method; by night, she manages team logistics. Talk to her about her work on increasing diversity in STEM or her plans for medical school.
Thai Nguyen recently graduated from Stanford University with a degree in bioengineering and was one of the co-captains of the 2015 SB iGEM team. This summer, he worked primarily on P(3HB) synthesis, the lysis system, and cellulose binding domains.
Tina Ju is a sophomore at Stanford University majoring in (probably) Bioengineering. This summer, she worked on turning bacterial cellulose into usable sheets and worked on our team’s Outreach and Human Practices.
Tyler Devlin is a Junior at Brown University majoring in Applied Math – Biology concentration. He worked on polystyrene synthesis and modeling, and was the principal poster designer.
Our Advisors!
Dr. Lynn J. Rothschild, an astrobiologist and synthetic biologist at NASA Ames Research Center, has mentored five wonderful iGEM teams in her lab including Brown-Stanford 2011, Stanford-Brown 2012, 2013, 2015, and StanfordBrownSpelman 2014.
Dr. Gary Wessel, is a Professor of Biology at Brown University. He has been the faculty sponsor for the Brown University team since 2006 and teaches the synbio course at Brown "Bio 1210 Synthetic Biological Systems". His research focuses on anything germ line and reproduction and applies synthetic biological approaches to this research field.
Dr. Kosuke Fujishima is a research scientist at NASA Ames working as a Synthetic Astrobiologist, tackling Origins of Life questions using molecular biology as a tool kit.
Dr. Ivan Glaucio Paulino Lima is a visiting scientist at Universities Space Research Association, working on research projects and flight experiments in support of synthetic biology and astrobiology.
Ryan Kent was a member of the 2011 Brown/Stanford iGEM team and graduated from Stanford in 2012 with an M.S. in Biology. This is his third year as an iGEM mentor and as a member of Dr. Lynn Rothschild’s lab. When he’s not whipping the team into shape, he enjoys writing about himself in the third person and surfing. -Ryan
Dr. Joseph Shih is a Lecturer in the Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. He has been the Stanford advisor for the team for the past four years and is amazingly proud of his team!
Kendrick Wang is a medical student at Johns Hopkins School of Medical. He earned his B.S. degree in Bioengineering at Stanford University. Prior to medical school, Kendrick was a researcher at NASA Ames Research Center studying the Origins of Life. He was a member of the 2012 Stanford Brown iGEM team and has been an advisor for iGEM teams since 2013.
Griffin McCutcheon is a mission support engineer at NASA Ames focusing on synthetic biology for satellite missions. He is a graduate of Johns Hopkins University with a degree in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
Evie Pless just started her PhD at Yale University. At Stanford, she studied Ecology and Evolution as an undergrad and Biology as a Master's student. Evie was a member of the Stanford-Brown 2013 iGEM team.
Jesica Urbina-Naverrete is a PhD Candidate at UC Santa Cruz and is completing her dissertation research at NASA Ames Research Center. Her work involves applying synthetic biology approaches for biomining and biorecycling of materials from minerals and e-waste.
Akshay Maheshwari is a second year medical student pursuing an MD/PhD at Stanford University. He is interested in enabling the rational design and probing of biological systems and has loved working with the Stanford-Brown 2015 team!
Toshitaka Matsubara is a Ph.D student at Tokyo Tech University who is working on using Synthetic biology to domesticate Halophiles for future Mars missions.