Team:UIUC Illinois/Team
Meet the UIUC iGEM Team
UIUC_Illinois 2021 iGEM Team is representing University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 6 Illinis(ILL-INI!)-3 studying Bioengineering, 2 studying Molecular and Cell Biology, 1 studying Integrative Biology-worked on the apPETite project over the summer of 2021. Under the guidance of amazing mentors, the UIUC team worked on creating a better PET degrading enzyme
Members
Mary Cook
Senior in Bioengineering
iGEM has been an amazing experience in that it is student driven research. We had the chance to design our own project with guidance from our mentors and collaborate with other iGEM teams in order to combine research efforts.
Jefrin Joseph
Junior in Molecular Cellular Biology
iGEM has been a really educational opportunity and has given me a greater appreciation for research and the research process. As opposed to a typical research opportunity where we join onto someone else's pre-existing project, iGEM enables us to design our own project from scratch and become thoroughly immersed in the process.
Kristin Lai
Senior in Bioengineering
iGEM is a truly unique experience and I really enjoyed being a part of the UIUC team this year. I appreciated being able to have a direct impact on the design and implementation of our project—it’s unlike any other research I’ve been involved in.
Suva Narayan
Senior in Bioengineering
I had a lot of fun being on the drylab team this year and learned a lot of new things that I could utilize in my own future projects. I also really enjoyed looking at how drylab and wetlab processes come together for a singular project despite being so drastically different in nature.
Royal Shrestha
Junior in Molecular and Cellular Biology Honors
I loved drylab work so much last year that I decided to be part of the wetlab team this year. Lots of great experiences this summer, and the most memorable was coming in at the middle of the night to explore the entire empty research facility!
Angela Yoon
Senior in Integrative Biology
I rejoined for this year because I love to keep learning new things and meeting passionate people. iGEM enabled me to explore my interest in bioinformatics field. I am so grateful for the support we get for independent group research projects.
Mentors
Dr.Christopher Rao
Primary PI
Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Daniel Ryerson
Outreach coordinator
Outreach Activities Coordinator at Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology
Anshu Deewan
Wetlab Graduate Advisor
Ph.D. Candidate at Rao Lab, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Tarun Mahajan
Drylab Graduate Advisor
Graduate Research Assistant at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
William Woodruff
Wetlab Graduate Advisor
Chemical Engineering PhD Student at Rao Lab, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Anna Fedders
Research Coordinator
Research Coordinator at Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation