Our Directors
Andres Ochoa
Entrepreneur, Scientist (PhD Biotechnology), Biohacker and Public Speaker. Founder and Director at SyntechBio - Latin American Biohacker Spaces Network. Cofounder at Arcturus BioCloud. Mentor of Biotechnology Business at Startup Mexico. Member of the Bioindustry Committee at FIESP (Sao Paulo Industrial Federation). Associate Researcher at GaTE-LAB (Genomics and Transposable Elements) at Sao Paulo University – USP.
- Hobbies: Science fiction movies, dancing.
Alec Lourenco
Caltech iGEM 2014I am currently a rising senior at La Canada high school interested in synthetic biology.
- Hobbies: iOS development, drinking tea, moviegoing, attempting to sing, and, of course, writing college apps.
Our Coordinators
Kevin Chen
I’m a cofounder and CEO of Hyasynth Bio, a biotech company focused on industrial biosynthesis, a cofounder of Bricobio, Montreal's DIYbio lab. I graduated from Queen's University in Biochemistry in Kingston, Ontario in 2013.
- Hobbies include: Making/Hacking, juggling and circus art.
Noemi Rios
LaVerne-Leos iGEM 2015I am an undergraduate Biology student at the University of La Verne.
- Hobbies: Mentoring the youth, DIY Crafting, baking and binge watching shows on Netflix.
Joana Guiro
USP-UNESP-Brazil iGEM 2012, USP-Brazil iGEM 2013I am a PhD student at the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford.
- Hobbies: Rowing, learning languages and backpacking
Liza Felicori
Instructor iGEM UFMG_Brazil team 2013, 2014 and 2015I am a Biochemistry Professor at Biochemistry and Immunology Department of the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. My work is focused on protein-protein interactions application to diagnosis and therapeutics. Since 2008, I am working on the field of systems biology and synthetic biology.
- Hobbies include: Play tennis, cinema
Clara Guerra Duarte
Instructor iGEM UFMG_Brazil team 2013, 2014 and 2015 / Judge iGEM 2015I am a PostDoc at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil.
- Hobbies: Dancing (ballet, jazz, hiphop); Netflix series!
Carlos Alberto Xavier Gonçalves
Student iGEM UFMG_Brazil teams 2013, 2014 and 2015I’m a PhD student in Bioinformatics at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil.
- Hobbies: Games, movies and TV series.
Rafaela Salgado Ferreira
Instructor iGEM UFMG_Brazil teams 2014 and 2015I am a Molecular Biology Professor at the Biochemistry and Immunology Department, Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. My group works mostly on structure-based drug design projects, with a special focus on parasitic neglected diseases.
- Hobbies include: travelling, dancing, hiking, movies