David Sun Kong, Ph.D., is a synthetic biologist, community organizer, musician, and photographer. He conducted his graduate studies at MIT’s Media Laboratory, receiving a Master’s degree in nanotechnology and a Ph.D. in synthetic biology. He currently conducts research at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory, where he is a world leader in developing microfluidic, “lab-on-a-chip” biotechnologies. He was recognized as an emerging leader in synthetic biology as a “LEAP” fellow, served as a guest faculty member at the Marine Biology Lab in Woods Hole, and is managing faculty of “How To Grow (Almost) Anything,” an international course on biotechnology. David is also the founder and director of EMW, a community center in Cambridge MA with a mission of empowering communities through art and technology. As a musician, David has performed as a DJ, beat-boxer, vocalist, and rapper at hundreds of venues. His photography has been exhibited at the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian and other museums and galleries across the U.S.

Thras is a first year PhD student in the Molecular Machines group at MIT Media Lab. As a Research Assistant in Molecular Machines group and the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, he is actively involved in multidisciplinary projects including Computational Biology, Synthetic Biology, Artificial Olfaction, Femto-second laser Micro-Machining and rapid-prototyping. He is a graduate of the very first course of How to Grow almost Anything! He was an undergrad at University of Patras, Greece, as an Electrical and Computer Engineer with a major in Information theory and Communications, where he worked on Quantum Cryptography.

Alexandria Guo is a sophomore studying computational biology at Wellesley College. Currently working in a computational chemistry lab modelling protein-protein interactions, she also enjoys reading in her spare time and volunteers at the EMW Library.

Mary 'Maggic' Tsang is an artist and biohacker working at the intersection of culture, biotechnology, and civil disobedience. Her investigations challenge the role of creator and creation, the ethics of the postnatural product, and the supposed promises of science and technology. She holds a Bachelor of Science and Art (BSA) in Biological Sciences and Art from Carnegie Mellon University and is currently pursuing her masters in Media Arts and Sciences at MIT Media Lab, Design Fiction research group.

Ani is a speculative technologist, artist, designer and researcher. Her work explores the intersection between technology, sensory perception, culture & implications of emerging technologies. Her work has spanned the scales of built installations, prosthetic wearables, virtual reality immersions, to synthetic biology, as she searches for the epiphanies linking technological innovation with emotional affordance. Trained as an artist at Dartmouth, an architect at Harvard, and now a ​researcher at MIT​ Media Lab​, Ani continually seeks to discover the unexpected, through playful experimentation, intuition, and speculative storytelling.

Rachel Smith is a biomedical engineer exploring processes of integrating biology into materials and current fabrication processes. She hopes such mergers will spark brand new relationships and applications in which our materials may inherit the traits of sensing, reacting, growing or cooperating organisms. Rachel has a long-time interest in engaging people in the community with explorational biological engineering and the demystification of genetic modification. She holds a Bachelor of Science from University of Virginia, and is currently a researcher at the Mediated Matter group of the MIT Media Lab.