Cale Lester

Cale is a senior at Stanford Univeristy majoring in Bioengineering. He is particularly interested in using the synergy of genetic engineering and synthetic biology as means to solve global challanges. When he isn't operating at the forefront of innovation in the lab he enjoys serenading others on the saxophone and piano, cooking with too much garlic, and wishing he wasn't allergic to dogs.

Cale is working on the project's mycelium-specific glue, as well as filtration.

Advait Patil

Advait is a freshman at Stanford with an interest in using synthetic biology to transform how we interact with our surrounding world. This is his fourth year of involvement with iGEM, and prior to NASA he worked in systems biology, chemical engineering, and computational biophysics at MIT and UCSF. He has a mean frisbee forehand, and enjoys traveling, poetry, and spending time in nature.

Advait is working on optimizing metal binding motifs through rational design, functionalizing mycelium material, and creating a biofilter. He is also helping with creating chitin-based glues.

Javier Syquia

Javier is a third year in the Brown|RISD Dual Degree Program, majoring in Chemistry at Brown and Graphic Design at RISD. He is interested in the ways design and STEM may interact in unexpected yet seemless manners. Outside of the lab, Javier can be found sipping on nitro cold brew or bubble tea.

Javier is currently working on developing the material made of fungal mycelia, the project's mission architecture, and the team's wiki and other designs.

Arvind Veluvali

Arvind is a junior at Brown, and is studying Economics and Chemistry. His interests include Indian food, Broadway musicals, and the state of Minnesota.

Arvind is working on modifying yields of secondary metabolites in filamentous fungus.

Gabe Weininger

Gabe is a senior at Stanford studying neurobiology. Gabe is a monster at ping pong and welcomes challengers.

Gabe is working on creating a mycelium-specific bioglue and developing a light-induced system in bacillus subtilis to secrete the glue. He is also working on the filtration part of the project.

Dr. Lynn Rothschild

Lynn has helped found astrobiology and synthetic biology at NASA. Her research focuses on how microbes have evolved in the context of the physical environment, both here and potentially elsewhere. Feel d sites range from Australia to Africa to the Andres, off Earth on balloons and in orbit. Rothschild has brought her expertise in extremophiles and evolutionary biology to the field of synthetic biology, demonstrating how synthetic biology can enhance NASA’s missions. Since 2011 she has been privileged to be the faculty advisor of the Stanford-Brown award-winning iGEM team. Rothschild is a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and the Explorers Club, and the 2015 winner of the Isaac Asimov Award and Horace Mann Medal.

Dr. Jim Head

Jim Head teaches planetary geosciences in the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Brown University. While serving at NASA Headquarters (1968-1972), he participated in selection of landing sites for the Apollo program, training Astronaut crews in geology and surface exploration, mission operations in Houston during lunar surface exploration, and in analysis of returned samples. Research centers on the study of geological processes that form and modify the surfaces, crusts and lithospheres of planets, how they vary with time, and how they interact to produce the historical planetary geological records. Research has involved field studies on active volcanoes (Hawaii, Mt. St. Helens), on seafloor volcanic deposits (three deep-sea submersible dives), and during five Antarctic Dry Valleys field seasons, and one in the Arctic. He is interested in how synthetic biology can be used creatively to help open new frontiers in the robotic/human exploration of the Solar System.

Dr. Nils Averesch

Dr. Nils Averesch is the Synthetic Biology Task Lead with Universities Space Research Association as a Visiting Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, USA. He received his PhD in 2016 from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, where he focused on Metabolic Engineering at the Centre for Microbial Electrosynthesis. He holds an engineer’s degree (Dipl. Ing.) in Biochemical Engineering, from the Technical University of Dortmund in Dortmund, Germany, having graduated in 2011.

Dr. Tomasz Zajkowski

Dr. Tomasz Zajkowski is a Visiting Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, USA. His research is focused on protein aggregation, amyloid, and prion formation that might be one of the oldest characteristics of proteins. He's also interested in astrobiology because it provides a liberating perspective on mainstream evolution as it highlights the connection between the physical environment, and the evolution of life on Earth and beyond.

Trevor! Kalkus

Trevor! has the most incredible arches you've seen on any pair of feet, and was clearly born to be a ballerino. Unfortunately, he missed his calling and became a synthetic biologist. He is doing the best he can. Trevor! graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor's in Bioengineering and a Master's in Electrical Engineering with a bioelectric focus. Having been a member of the Stanford-Brown iGEM team in 2013, he has returned as a mentor while working on a low-cost, disposable tool for sensing specific viral RNA sequences.

Dr. Jesica Urbina

Dr. Jesica Urbina is a newly minted PhD and Collaborating Scientist from the US Geological Survey. Her research interests involve the interactions between microorganisms and metals. Jesica’s dissertation research was a NASA-funded project that involved bio-recycling e-waste by utilizing synthetic biology tools to aid in the degradation and separation of the metals and silica contained in e-waste for recycling and reuse.

Rolando Perez

From Salinas, CA, Rolando received an A.S. in physics and in math from Hartnell Community College, a B.S. in biomolecular engineering with a minor in bioinformatics from UC Santa Cruz, and a M.S. in bioengineering from Stanford University. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in bioengineering in the Endy Lab developing technologies for engineering mycelium materials. Enjoys spending time with family, camping, and surfing.