Carlos Buenos
Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology

Carlos is (also) a graduate student in System, Synthetic and Physical Biology. He is interested in Theoretical Biophysics and he would like to create strange proteins one day. Meanwhile, he likes learning about wet lab techniques and helping the iGEM team with the pathway models.

David Zong
Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology

David Zong is a third year graduate student in the Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology program. David is from Seattle, Washington and went to The University of Washington for his undergrad. There he was a member of the Washington iGEM team from 2010 to 2013. This is his second year advising iGEM at Rice. When not in lab, he enjoys watching the Seattle Mariners wallow in mediocrity...except when they play the Astros or Rangers because of MLB.tv blackout restrictions in the state of Texas. C'mon MLB.

George Britton
Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology

George Britton is a third year Systems, Synthetic and Physical Biology PhD student. As a mountain man living in a concrete jungle, George seeks adventure whenever not the lab. He was bitten by the travel bug as a child and continually adds passport stamps and experiences.

Josh Atkinson
Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology

Josh never writes his own bio, but he eats and sleeps like everyone else.

Ilenne Del Valle Kessra
Systems, Synthetic, and Physical Biology

To be or not to be, it's a great question.

Dr. Beth Beason
Department of Biochemistry & Cell Biology

K. Beth Beason-Abmayr came to Rice in 1998 as a Postdoctoral Teaching Associate in the Department of Biochemistry & Cell Biology (BCB) and just completed her 17th year as teaching faculty. Her teaching labs are located in the basement of Anderson Biological Laboratories, which Rice students affectionately named The Dungeon, as in Dante’s Inferno. Beth got involved with iGEM in spring 2006 when Dr. George Bennett, BCB Chair, told her he’d signed Rice up for a team and thought it would be great for her undergraduate lab courses if she led a team. Rice competed in 2006-2008, and their 2008 team project was BioBeer. She began teaching a synthetic biology lab course to undergraduates in 2008, and it’s one of her most popular lab courses. She returned to iGEM as a judge at the America Regionals and World Jamboree in 2011. She has served as a co-head judge since 2012 and is now a member of the Executive Judging Committee. Beth is super excited about the Rice team and can’t wait until the Giant Jamboree! When she isn’t teaching, she enjoys reading, hiking, and traveling to exotic places - each year, she and her husband take a ski vacation in Utah (ok, so Utah may not be exotic but snow certainly is to those of us living in Houston).