Team:UIUC-Illinois/Team/Members

Amanda joined iGEM because she wanted to learn how to conduct research in a laboratory environment and have the opportunity to work with other undergraduates with similar interests. She loves how iGEM gives students the chance to apply their knowledge and skills as biologists in the lab while learning how to engineer biological systems at the same time. She is fascinated with how so many different fields and disciplines have come together to form the field of SynBio, and being a student at the University of Illinois constantly reminds her how important interdisciplinary collaboration is!

In her free time, she enjoys going on adventures, playing guitar, snowboarding, surfing Reddit, and learning guitar and ukulele. She also likes to read about transhumanism, which has only somewhat contributed to her slight obsession with cyborgs. She loves XKCD and Dinosaur Comics. She thinks writing about herself in the third person is strange.

Angela is a second year student majoring in Biological Engineering. This is her first year in iGEM and also as a publicity director. She joined iGEM because she thought artificial gene circuits were pretty awesome and researching with undergrads would be a great opportunity to learn.

Throughout the year, in addition to the research activities in the wet lab, she learned the most from coordinating events to enhance community awareness of synthetic biology and general biology issues.

Besides iGEM, she travels and does all kinds of volunteer work.

Will is our 2011 Science/Research Director. This is his Senior year as a Biochemistry student here at UIUC and his first experience on iGEM. He was drawn to iGEM by the enthusiasm he noticed from past members and the dedication they showed.

Along with class work, he is pursuing a senior thesis, and shepherding cultures for iGEM. He enjoys running, eating PB and Js, and taking awesome naps (which he finds particularly enjoyable when performed in that order). He plans to pursue a career in Medicine.