About Our Team

Our Team

UMaryland iGEM was founded in 2014 and won two gold medals since its founding. Composed of undergraduate students under the advising of graduate mentors and faculty members, UMaryland iGEM aims to train new scientists in the field of synthetic biology and to apply their knowledge in solving major local and global issues.

Students	Advisors	Acknowledgements

Subhashini Arumugam

Subhashini Arumugam is a freshman bioengineering major that aspires to go to medical school someday. Besides science, she is very interested in learning languages, writing, and political activism. She is also very passionate about dance, yoga, making breakfast, and taking naps. She hopes to gain research experience and exposure to the many facets of synthetic biology through iGEM, and looks forward to contributing to the team's outreach projects.

Jacob Premo

Jacob Premo is a freshman currently majoring in biochemistry and microbiology. He joined the UMaryland iGEM team in hopes of working with his peers on meaningful and unique research topics. After his undergraduate career, Jacob plans to pursue a PhD which he would like to put to use developing new medicines. Outside of his academic and research life Jacob enjoys reading books and watching sports.

Ben Walton

Ben is a rising sophomore pursuing a double-degree in Mechanical Engineering and Computer Science. At this point in college, he still does not know his career path, but hopes that the experience of iGEM will help to give him some ideas. Outside of school, Ben can be found playing cards or board games with friends, reading, or slack-lining. Very recently, he has developed an interest in snorkeling and scuba diving.

SangHo Jee

SangHo is a freshman biochemistry and neurobiology & physiology double major in the Integrated Life Sciences program, who primarily joined iGEM to work on their wiki and website design, while gaining exposure to how the wet labs work. He hopes to one day attend medical school in the future but is interested in research as well. Outside of iGEM he enjoys web programming, reading the news, and playing video games.

Seth Cohen

Seth is a freshman biochemistry major at the University of Maryland. Outside of science his favorite things to do are play basketball and write fiction. His favorite food is probably falafel on pita bread with tomatoes, cucumbers, feta, lettuce, tahini, and hummus. His favorite animal is definitely the elephant. Another kind of interesting fact about him is that he is vegetarian. That's pretty much all you need to know about Seth!

Maria Novitskaya

Maria is a rising sophomore Neurobiology and Physiology major. She is passionate about science, friendship, and getting enough sleep. Her likes include the color green, movies and documentaries, and making great guacamole. Her dislikes include getting stuck in traffic, spinach, and writing bios.

Nancy Zhang

Presenting Nancy Zhang! Nancy is a freshman majoring in Neurology & Physiology and is also a part of the ILS program in the Honors College. Aside from her strong focus in science, Nancy has a great passion for art and devotes her spare time to arts, crafts and sculpture, therefore she brings an artistic touch in addition to years of research experience. She hopes to be able to unite different disciplines like engineering, graphic design, and wet lab work in research to help the team create a strong project this year!

Chaoyang Wang

Chaoyang is a freshman studying Neurobiology and Physiology with a minor in Music Performance in the Integrated Life Sciences Program. Aspiring to become a surgeon one day, Chaoyang is an Executive Board Member of the American Medical Student Association. He has researched 2 summers at an Adult Stem Cell lab at the NIH and hopes to contribute his lab experience to the iGEM team.

Chaoyang has also recently partaken in an Alternative Spring Break to New York City to join the movement to end the stigma against HIV and AIDS. Outside of academics, he enjoys playing piano and has played in various renowned locales, including Carnegie Hall and the Millennium Stage at the Kennedy Center. Among his many wins are first prize at the 29th annual International Young Artist Piano Competition. Chaoyang also enjoys taking artsy pictures and loves hanging out with friends.

Chun Mun Loke

Hailing from Singapore and Australia, Chun Mun's strong interest in genetic engineering prompted him to join iGEM. He hopes to conduct research in this field after attaining an MD/PhD. Outside of school, he is a self proclaimed piano prodigy, having won consecutive local competitions and finalizing in international ones. He can solve a Rubik's cube in a very slow average of 17 seconds and is an avid video gamer. He is actually not a weeaboo as some aspects of his profile may suggest.

Paula Kleyman

Paula is a rising sophomore studying bioengineering. She hopes to further her studies in graduate school and pursue a career in academia. Her hobbies include long distance running, singing, and playing logic games. On campus she is involved with the Resident Hall Association and is a part of the Integrated Life Sciences living-learning program. She loves dogs, especially corgis, and bunnies, especially Angora rabbits.

Dr. Edward Eisenstein

Edward Eisenstein is a Fellow in the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research and an Associate Professor in the Fischell Department of Bioengineering at the University of Maryland. Trained in modern structural enzymology, his current research interests are focused on protein and biosystem engineering for discovery and application in plants and microorganisms.

Dr. Jason Kahn

Jason D. Kahn is a biophysical chemist who studies protein-nucleic acid interaction and engineering. He is best known for studies of DNA looping, bending, twisting, and cyclization, as well as hybridization thermodynamics for modified bases. He teaches a variety of chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology courses, which he credits for initiating his interest in synthetic biology. Dr. Kahn was a graduate student at UC Berkeley and a post-doc at Yale before coming to Maryland in 1994.

Dr. Booth "Boots" Quimby

Dr. Quimby is Associate Director of the Integrated Life Sciences honors program in the Honors College at the University of Maryland. Prior to joining the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at UMD as a full-time instructor, she earned her Master's of Arts in teaching from the University of South Carolina, after which she taught high school science in Atlanta, Georgia for eight years. She then returned to graduate school and received her doctorate in genetics and molecular biology from Emory University.

Naren Bhokisham

Naren is a Graduate Student in Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his undergraduate degree in Industrial Biotechnology from St. Joseph’s College of Engineering, Anna University, India. He works in the intersection of synthetic biology, metabolic engineering and biomaterials, involving assembly of enzyme cascades on various interfaces to generate small molecules and engineering microbes to display novel phenotypes in response to small molecules. Apart from science, his pursuits include traveling, running and latin dancing.