Team:Rice/Team
Team
In this page you can introduce your team members, instructors, and advisers.
Student bios
Catherine Dunaway
Catherine is a rising senior from Montgomery, Texas majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology and minoring in Global Health Technologies. Catherine’s primary contribution to the Rice iGEM team has been in the wet lab, but she thinks human practices is pretty rad as well. In her spare time you might find Catherine baking pies or singing show tunes with much gusto but slightly off-key.
Maryam Elizondo
Maryam is a rising junior from McAllen, Texas majoring in Bioengineering. She has contributed to research and modeling for the iGEM team. She is excited to learn more coding skills from this project as well as look at the human practices side of the project as well. Maryam is also working in a 3D printing lab this summer. In her free time, she tries to stay active and read books, go to good restaurants, and watch outrageous amounts of Netflix.
Anna Guseva
Anna is a sophomore from Saint Petersburg, Russia majoring in Bioengineering. She helps mainly with wet lab and is also learning about modeling and wiki. Apart from science, she enjoys hiking and taking random online courses.
Jessica Lee
Jessica is a junior from Houston, Texas majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, minoring in Business, and following a pre-medical track. All of the work she does for iGEM can be done on her laptop whether that be designing graphics, coding the wiki, or curating our social media platforms. If she’s not working on iGEM, she’s probably working one of her three jobs this summer: tour guide, stem cell researcher, or life sciences startup intern.
Emma McCormick
Emma is a junior from the small town of Kerrville, Texas majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. She has contributed to our modeling and human practices projects. When she isn’t working in a pedriatic cancer research lab you can probably find her hanging out in a residential college kitchen eating way too many cookies with her friends.
Bidisha Nandi
Bidisha is a sophomore from Houston, Texas majoring in Bioengineering and following a premedical track. She is excited to be working in wet lab and researching for her first time! She is also contributing to human practices. Other than that, she enjoys dancing through Rice Rasikas and swimming.
Jonathan Pan
Jonathan is a junior from Hsinchu, Taiwan majoring in Chemical Engineering and minoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. He is a wild card of sorts in iGEM, participating in all areas of the project. Outside of iGEM, he is involved in metabolic engineering research and has a great passion for cellular agriculture. The remainder of his time is filled with learning about various subjects, crying over the season finales of HBO shows, exploring Houston’s arts and culture, and trying to emulate Extreme Couponing.
Jack Terrell
Jack is a senior from Whitehouse, Texas majoring in Bioengineering and minoring in Computational and Applied Mathematics. He focuses specifically on modeling for iGEM. He has taught computational engineering for four semesters, and currently researches models for single-cell stochastic processes. In his spare time, he likes to play modded Minecraft and Cities Skylines.
Albert Truong
Albert is a sophomore from Houston, Texas majoring in Biochemistry and Cell Biology. He works mainly in the wet lab for iGEM. When he’s not in the wet lab, he likes to read and to practice his violin.
David Yang
David is a sophomore from Vancouver, Canada. While he is undecided on what majors or minors he intends to pursue, he is nonetheless ecstatic to be involved with iGEM. He will be working mostly in the wet lab, but is able to help out with other facets of the team whenever needed. Outside of iGEM, he enjoys playing basketball and working out.
Soohyun Yoon
Soohyun is a rising sophomore from Yorktown, Virginia. She intends to major in Bioengineering with a minor in Global Health Technologies. She discovered iGEM at the end of her freshman year and has been hooked ever since. She helps mostly with the wiki. In her free time, she likes to learn new languages and fix bikes.
Advisers
Shyam Bhakta
Shyam is a first year PhD student in the Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology graduate program at Rice. He grew up in north Houston and later studied syn bio as an undergrad in UC Berkeley’s bioengineering and molecular and cell biology programs. He advises Rice iGEM to inspire students to pursue interdisciplinary biological research. When not in the lab, Shyam briefly sleeps and eats.
Ilenne Del Valle
Ilenne is a second year Ph.D. student in the System, Synthetic and Physical Biology program at Rice University. She is from Santiago, Chile and participated in the 2013 iGEM jamboree. She loves advising iGEM so she can write a list of sad faces and put it in her bench whenever an iGEM undergrad makes a silly mistake. When not in the lab, you can find her traveling around the world and hiking new adventures.
Matthew Ykema
Matt is a second year Ph.D. student in Biochemistry/Cell Biology at Rice University. He somehow survived the scorching heat of his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona through his time at Arizona State University. He enjoys advising iGEM so he can give a virologist’s perspective on synthetic biology, while convincing undergraduates to go to grad school. Outside of lab, he reads obscure cyberpunk fiction and consumes large
David Zong
David is a fourth year Ph.D. student in the Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology program at Rice University. He is from Seattle, Washington where he attended the University of Washington. At Washington he participated in iGEM from 2010 to 2013. At Rice he advised the team since 2015. He advises the iGEM team because, well, he’s been at it for a while now so why quit now? Outside of the lab he enjoys traveling, watching baseball and various electronic forms of entertainment.
Instructors
Dr. Beth Beason
K. Beth Beason-Abmayr just completed her 19th year as teaching faculty in BioSciences at Rice University. Beth first got involved with iGEM in spring 2006. The 2008 Rice team was covered nationally and internationally for their BioBeer project. She began teaching an undergraduate synthetic biology lab course in 2008, and it’s one of her most popular courses. She returned to iGEM as a judge in 2011 and is a member of the Executive Judging Committee. And Rice returned to iGEM in 2015 as a joint team with HKUST. When she isn’t teaching, Beth enjoys reading, hiking, and skiing (both on snow and in the water).
Dr. Jonathan (Joff) Silberg
Joff is an Associate Professor of Biosciences and Bioengineering at Rice who is a faculty mentor for the team. He is interested in new creative applications of synthetic biology, especially those related to redox and the environment.
Inspiration
You can look at what other teams did to get some inspiration!
Here are a few examples:
What should this page contain?
- Include pictures of your teammates, don’t forget instructors and advisors!
- You can add a small biography or a few words from each team member, to tell us what you like, and what motivated you to participate in iGEM.
- Take team pictures! Show us your school, your lab and little bit of your city.
- Remember that image galleries can help you showcase many pictures while saving space.
