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Kevin Fitzgerald

Major: Biological Engineering

Year: Junior

Kevin Fitzgerald is an aspiring Calvin Klein model, a Junior in Biological Engineering, and most importantly, a Gemini. He grew up on the mines of suburban Cincinnati, OH but currently lives in Boston, MA. If modelling falls through (it really is a volatile job market), Kevin plans on either working at a small biotechnology company or furthering his education in synthetic biology. His hobby includes screaming when digests don’t work, coinciding with a periodic questioning of the existence of a higher power.

Makayla Schacht

Major: Genetics

Year: Junior

Makayla Schacht is a Junior this year at Purdue University studying genetics. Her initial dream was to travel the world pursuing research in synthetic biology, but her mind constantly changes. Nevertheless, she plans on pursuing a master’s degree after her undergraduate degree at Purdue. When she isn’t trying to pipet infinitesimal amounts of various liquids into microcentrifuge tubes, she is probably sleeping, worrying about everything else, procrastinating because she doesn't know where to start, or practicing music. Outside of academics, she is a trombonist in the Purdue All-American Marching Band with a wicked glove tan line. She has performed at football games and internationally at the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in Dublin, Ireland.

Janice Chan

Major: Biological Engineering

Minor: Biotechnology

Year: Junior

Janice Chan is a Junior, all the way from Phoenix, Arizona. She loves watching T.V, eating ice cream, meeting new people and traveling to new places. You can always find her carrying snacks and eating in class because she is always hungry. But don’t ask her to exercise because although she used to swim, Janice hates any form of physical activity other than walking to get food.

Zachary Berglund

Major: Biological Engineering

Minor: Biotechnology & Biology

Year: Junior

Zachary Berglund is a Junior from Santa Clara, California. When he’s not working on the iGEM project, he is slowly dying from all the (energy drinks) due to lack of sleep. He’s involved in 7 other student organizations such as Wiley Radio, Purdue Music Producers, Fantasy Club and Virtual Reality Club. He’s also president of a residential hall club so he’s often not seen due to always being in motion, cameras are only able to capture him as a small blur as such his existence is not yet proven. When he’s done with his education, he ultimately wants to end up as a professor since his ultimate goal is to have a busy and fufilling life.

Julianne Dejoie

Major: Genetics & Spanish

Minor: Biotechnology

Year: Junior

Julianne Dejoie is a Junior from Lafayette, IN. Besides for her love of synthetic biology and genetics, Julianne also loves robotics and manufacturing. Other than her involvement with iGEM, she spends her time with Lunabotics and being a college mentor for a biannual high school retreat. She loves to learn new things and gets involved with too many things in her organizations because she has too many interest. When she isn’t working on school or running around like a chicken with its head cut off, you can find her procrastinating by reading, sleeping, playing video games or singing. After college, Julianne wants to work in R&D for cures and is looking into teaching at the college level when she gets older.

Zach Hartley

Major: Plant Genetics and Biotechnology

Minor: Biological Sciences

Year: Sophomore

To the dismay of all of his friends and family, Zach Hartley left sunny California to enter the chaotic, flat lands of Indiana. After Purdue, he plans on pursuing graduate school or a career at a biotechnology company. He says the only way he could be convinced to not attend graduate school is if he could place alligator genes into vegetables to decrease the public’s trust in GMO’s more than it already is. Outside of the classroom, you will find him at iGEM meetings, and vice-versa.

Moiz Rasheed

Major: Computer Engineering

Year: Sophomore

Moiz Rasheed wants nothing more than to become a part of the matrix. He spends multiple hours a day meditating with a VR headset on. When he’s not modeling our construct’s reaction or “working” on the wiki, you can usually find Moiz dodging pedestrians on his bike which only has one wheel because he doesn’t know how to use a bike lock or trying to find his phone, as he constantly loses it. He spends most his time looking for things that are already in his hands.

Caleigh Roleck

Major: Biochemistry

Minor: Biotechnology & Statistics

Year: Senior

Caleigh Roleck, the token senior in Purdue iGEM, is the girl Purdue iGEM cannot get rid of, not matter how hard they try, but let’s face it, they would not want to anyways. She is majoring in biochemistry and minoring in biotechnology and statistics, and gives Zach Berglund a run for his money in terms of energy drinks (specifically Red Bull) consumed in the average day. In addition to running the new member program for the iGEM recruitees, she serves as the president of Purdue’s Students for Responsible Science and Engineering, which plans campus-wide events focused on the integration of science into society, and serves as a teaching assistant for the introductory biology laboratory course. She works in a research laboratory studying how two different bacteria are able to genetically transform plants. Her long-term career goals is to earn her doctorate and serve as a federal researcher, and her long-term personal goal is to be her neighborhood’s crazy bird lady.

Jamie Arabshahi

Major: Biological Engineering

Year: Junior

Jamie is a Junior studying Biological Engineering from Gaithersburg, Maryland. Her largest contribution to the team is asking a lot of questions, as she always seems to be completely lost. Outside of this, she tries to convince people that playing Dungeons & Dragons is actually cool. While she claims she is successful of this, most people think differently. When she graduates, Jamie only wants a job to keep her out of crippling debt, which may be too much to ask.

Sarah Liu

Major: Biological Engineering

Minor: Forensic Sciences

Year: Junior

Sarah Liu is a junior in Biological Engineering minoring in Forensic Sciences from Carmel, IN, but her family residence post high school graduation has moved from there to Houston, TX and then again to Philadelphia, PA in the past two years. She won’t be offended if you trash talk her hometown since she acknowledges its status as most hated city in Indiana. She’s the peasant third wheel to the team as a graphic designer and photographer, but she IS the one who designed the team’s banner that you will see at the Jamboree and shot several of the team’s photos. She can’t get away with not practicing violin as current concertmaster of the Purdue Philharmonic Orchestra and member of the pit orchestra of Purdue Theatre’s upcoming production of Next to Normal (Nov. 9-18, 2018 - support Sarah and buy tickets at https://tinyurl.com/buyPurdueN2Ntixhere), and she does research in the Y-lab (yangyanglab.org). In the little free time she has left, she either sleeps (or doesn’t), procrastinates, dabbles in making art, shoots photos for the Purdue Exponent in which her mastery of the art can capture a non-blurry still shot of Zachary Berglund in motion, enjoys traveling as a proctor/volunteer in Science Olympiad tournaments everywhere, and exercises power to ban misbehaving people (or spambots) online as a Global Moderator of scioly.org. She eventually hopes to pursue a PhD and a career in biotechnology R&D, particularly in medicine although she’s pretty flexible about that, but if that falls through, being a real CSI unlike the ones on TV is a decent option to her too.