Purdue University, West Lafayette

Hello, my name is Alex Carle. I usually say I’m from Henderson, NV though I was born and lived around Milwaukee, WI as well. I attended Purdue University in Indiana and graduated with a BS in biomedical engineering this last year. I spent some time studying muscle progenitors with immunohistochemistry at my home institution and also studied brain tumor growth in a radiology lab at Medical College of Wisconsin. My background is somewhat diverse, but I joined MCSB with the intention of using medical imaging to model disease progression and improve methods of diagnosis among other things.

Like many people, I enjoy watching a good movie, listening to and playing music, following the Green Bay Packers and Miami Heat, and reading when I get a chance. I hope to not only have a great PhD experience, but also to take advantage of all California has to offer and find some new interests and hobbies. I look forward to meeting everyone.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Hello, my name is Alvaro Fletcher. I'm originally from Lima, Peru and recently graduated from the University of Maryland, Baltimore County with a B.S. in Mathematics. While I was there, I worked on alternative approaches to clustering high dimensional data. Additionally, I spent a summer at Mississippi State University where I studied the impacts of sequence conservation on RNA-Seq alignment in co-infection studies.

My research interests span a variety of topics such as the dynamics of transcription regulatory networks, machine learning methods for biological data, and just about anything involving stochastic simulations of biological networks. In my free time I enjoy playing badminton, cooking, and learning some German.

South University of Science and Technology of China

I am Huiyu He from China. I finished my undergraduate study at South University of Science and Technology of China with a B. S. in biosciences. I took projects about bacteria pattern formation robustness and gene expression noise control after I joined a lab. Before that, I took part in iGEM. My team created an online biobrick circuits registry. I enjoy biological research combining knowledge from other fields.

I am curious about nearly everything. I think knowing what is happening around me is necessary to me.

University of Toronto

Hi. My name is Qingda (pronounced like Ching da). I am from Toronto, Canada. I graduated two years ago with a B.Sc. from the University of Toronto. For my Master's degree, I have been studying a small molecule therapeutic for Alzheimer's disease for the past two years at Sunnybrook Research Institute. I have some experience in the fields of respiratory disease, diabetes, and neurodegenerative disease.

My hobbies include biking, swimming, rock climbing, and board games.

Loyola Marymount University

Hello! My name is Tessa Morris. I was born and raised in San Diego, California. I graduated in the spring from Loyola Marymount University with a B.S. in Biomathematics. Over the last four years, I have been a part of a research project at University of California San Diego, in which we developed a model to mathematically distinguish between patients with and without obstructive lung defects by the rate of decay in their airflow with respect to volume during forced exhalation. At Loyola Marymount University, I joined a research project with the goal of mathematically modeling the gene regulatory network controlling the cold shock response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

My research interests include modeling biological systems, population genetics, and cancer biology. I enjoy reading, listening to music, going to the beach.

Davidson College

Hello, my name is Ryan Price. I grew up mostly in Marietta, GA. I graduated from Davidson College in 2012 with a BA in Philosophy and a minor in Neuroscience. From there, I spent two years attaining a Master's in Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience at the University of Tübingen in Tübingen, Germany and another two in the Laboratory of Neurogenetics at the National Institute on Aging, NIH. My recent work at NIH includes genome-wide association and heritability studies for various diseases, designing and implementing a pipeline to identify genome-wide methylation QTLs, and using unsupervised machine learning approaches to identify Parkinson's Disease subtypes.

My interests involve integrating disparate biological data in a biologically informed way to develop models predicting disease. I speak German, play a good number of musical instruments, and run in my free time.

UC San Diego

My name is Sorena Rahmanian. I am from Iran and I came to the US to pursue my higher education. I studied Bioengineering at UC San Diego and graduated with my Master's degree in 2012. Since then I have been working as a protein engineer in couple different companies. My studies were mostly focused on molecular systems biology and metabolic network reconstruction.

I enjoy playing volleyball and soccer and outdoor activities such as hiking and I spend most of my time besides work helping the process of community building in different neighborhoods.

Zhejiang University, China

Hello! My name is Tao Yuan. I come from China, and recently graduated from Zhejiang University with a B.E in computer science and technology. My scientific interests focus on bioinformatics and computational biology.

I’d like to know how to discover the mechanism of various biological and chemical processes by analyzing the data of experiments. In my spare time, I enjoy reading, traveling, playing video games & board games and learning new things about the world.

Stanford University

My name is Dana Wyman. I grew up in San Clemente, California, and earned my B.S. in biology and M.S. in biomedical informatics at Stanford University. During the past three years, I worked in the Snyder lab at Stanford studying regulatory variation related to abdominal aortic aneurysms, among other things.

My main area of interest is in computational human genomics, particularly the role of gene regulation in disease. I hope to further develop my computational skills during my PhD, as well as improve my understanding of the biological mechanisms of gene regulation. Outside of lab, I enjoy sewing, embroidery, and other creative pursuits.

University of Texas-Austin

Hi y’all, my name is Galen. I grew up in Nashville and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a B.S. in Plant Biology. For the last couple of years, I've been working in software development, and my current favorite programming language is Swift.

I’m interested in biological machines, biomimicry, machine learning, and applied math—I think their real-world utility has endless potential, and that the heavy crossover of technology and the natural world is where the most exciting science is headed.

I often quote funny videos, movies, and comedians, and if you are around me enough will insist you watch them. I play drums and enjoy hiking, the ocean, and a variety of activities too nerdy to talk about with strangers.