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Criteria

View our judging criteria for iGEM 2011 here.

The Team

The undergraduate portion of the IGEM 2011 team at UC Davis is currently comprised of four UC Davis students, two of whom are carried over from the team that brought home a Gold at the iGEM Jamboree last year. Candidates for this years iGEM team were selected based on their academic achievement, previous work and laboratory experience, interviews with faculty and responses to a questionnaire about iGEM and synthetic biology.

Keegan Owsley

     Position: Team leader.
     Major: Biomedical Engineering.
     Year: Senior.
     iGEM Experience: 2 years.
     Speciality: Code-guy.
     Musical Expertise: None.

Autobiography: Hey guys, I'm Keegan.

Tim Fenton

     Position: Team member.
     Major: Cell Biology.
     Year: Senior.
     iGEM Experience: 3 years.
     Speciality: Wetlab, Wiki Design.
     Musical Expertise: 17 years of piano, plays about a dozen other instruments.

Autobiography: Hey there I'm Tim. I really enjoy doing iGEM because it is one of the best undergrad research opportunities and I love working in the field of synthetic biology. If I'm not working in lab (almost never) I enjoy cycling on the country roads around Davis and playing tennis.

Aaron Heuckroth

     Position: Team member.
     Major: Microbiology, Classics.
     Year: Senior.
     iGEM Experience: 1 year.
     Speciality: Bacteria Geek, Fundraising.
     Musical Expertise: 7 years of electric guitar. Metal, prog-rock, whatever!

Autobiography:

Nick Csiscery

     Position: Team member.
     Major: Biological Systems Engineering
     Year: Junior.
     iGEM Experience: 1 year.
     Speciality: Wetlab, some code. "The New Guy."
     Musical Expertise: Several years of electric guitar. Classic Rock.

Autobiography: Hi I'm Nick. I have really enjoyed learning how to work in a research lab and seeing how real research is done from start to finish. In my spare time I like running and hiking.

The Advisors

These four are "supervised" by:

Mike Starr: Graduate student studying "synthetic biology" / "systems biology." Often signs his name on plates with an actual star. Musical expertise unknown.

Everyone above works in a lab run by:

Marc Facciotti: Primary faculty contact. PhD in Biophysics. Plays the drums in the local jazz band "We 'Bones."

Ilias Tagkopoulos: PhD in Electrical Engineering. Musical expertise unknown.

Dr. Marc Facciotti

     Position: Primary Investigator. The Boss.
     Department: Biomedical Engineering
     Degree: Ph.D. in Biophysics.
     iGEM Experience: 3 year.
     Musical Expertise: Plays drums in the local jazz band "We 'Bones."