Team:Stanford/Sponsors
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Kara Rogers
Kara Helmke Rogers received her undergraduate degrees at the University of Texas at Austin, with a B.S. in Biology and B.A. in Honors Liberal Arts (Plan II). She received her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from UC Berkeley in 2013 where she studied the molecular mechanisms of cell division. Kara was the Education and Program Coordinator for the UCSF Center for Systems and Synthetic Biology (2013-2015) where she taught synthetic biology and supervised team undergraduate research projects, as well as coordinating diverse K-12 and public outreach opportunities. In Stanford's Bioengineering department, she teaches biological lab courses and helps to develop innovative coursework to help students creatively approach and solve problems. One of her passions is science communication, and she instills that into all of her technical courses.
Ross Venook
Ross received BS, MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 2000, 2002, and 2006, respectively. His graduate research included design and characterization of various hardware methods in MRI. Following a Biodesign fellowship, Ross founded the Boston Scientific Neuromodulation team in MRI safety and worked across the MRI safety community to create and improve international standards for MRI safety testing. He continues to support the MRI safety programs as an R&D Fellow at Boston Scientific. Ross enjoys the unique challenges and constraints offered by biomedical engineering projects, and he delights in the opportunity for collaborative learning in a problem-solving environment. He is currently getting to do this every day at Stanford in his dual role as a Lecturer in the Bioengineering department and as Supervisor of the Biodesign Collaboratory. When not working on medical devices, Ross enjoys all manner of outdoor activity and rediscovering the world from a new perspective with his wife and young sons.
Rolando Perez
"I am the first born son of Mexican immigrants and I was born and raised in Salinas, CA. I am a trained bioengineer and my current work lies at the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and mycotechnology. Central to my approach is a belief that the worlds most pressing issues will not be solved by individuals and that the solutions to such issues begin with people. In the Endy lab I hope to apply a human centered design approach to help the lab push forward their understanding of the ecology of filamentous fungi, as well as develop tools for the use of mycelia and mushrooms in next-generation biomanufacturing and the growing bioeconomy. In my free time I enjoy the natural world, especially surfing waves on the California coast."
Josh Tycko
Josh is a current genetics PhD student at Stanford University. Having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014 with a B.S. in Biological Mathematics and a minor in Biophysics, Nanotechnology and French, he has been involved in the iGem community since his undergraduate career. He is currently involved in the Bintu Lab where he is exploring single-cell chromatin and gene regulation dynamics for better cell engineering. Tycko also has multiple scientific publications exploring multiple CRISPR/Cas9 systems. When not in lab, he enjoys playing some jazz music.
Stanley Qi
Dr. Stanley Qi is Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and the Department of Chemical & Systems Biology. He is a core faculty member in Stanford ChEM-H Institute. He obtained B.S. in Math and Physics from Tsinghua University, Beijing China, M.A. in Physics from UC Berkeley, and Ph.D. in Bioengineering from UC Berkeley. He worked as a Faculty Fellow at UCSF between 2012-2014, and then became assistant professor in Stanford University since 2014. His team developed the first use of dCas9 technology for genetic engineering and gene regulation, including CRISPRi/a for targeted transcription activation or repression of genes, as well as dCas9 for genome imaging in living cells.
Alec Lourenco
Alec Lourenço is a Stanford junior majoring in Engineering Physics. During his time at Stanford, he's worked in the Endy lab as well as in Stanford's Biological Interdisciplinary Open Maker Environment (BIOME), a student group that supports independent student biology-related projects. His research interests include DNA-based genetic logic circuits, enzymatic DNA synthesis, and the rational design of organisms from the ground-up. While waiting for experiments to run, he enjoys hitting the gym or guzzling copious amounts of tea.
