Kylie Akiyama is a second-year bioengineering undergraduate at UC Berkeley with an interest in the convergence of synthetic biology and space exploration. She is currently within the FPSD division of CUBES, working with Dr. Jake Hilzinger to improve the group’s capacity to metabolically engineer A. platensis for small molecule production.
Farrah, undergraduate student studying Bioengineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. She worked on the CUBES project with Dr. Aaron Berliner. Farrah worked on developing a model that simulates how metabolic rate of crew members fluctuate during space travel and extravehicular activity under varying conditions. She researched data for microbial biomanufacturing.
Will Sharpless was an undergraduate researcher in the Arkin lab for 2 years. He works on the CUBES mission to design novel microbial communities for the rhizosphere of rice. Will is a math/bio double major at Cal and focuses on the dynamics and stability of biological systems, and the application of mathematics for nonlinear systems and networks to bioengineering. In the lab, Will works under the mentorship of postdoctoral researchers Kyle Sander and Fangchao Song.
Isaac Lipsky an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying environmental science and public policy. In concert with Aaron Berliner, he worked on developing cost-benefit metrics for Mars surface operations. His interests include planetary science and the tantalizing prospect of Martian terraforming.
Fengzhe Shi was an undergraduate at Beijing Jiaotong University and now an exchange student at UC Berkeley studying computer science. He joined Mesbah Lab during this period and took part in the CUBES project. In CUBES, Fengzhe mainly works on modeling deep learning based surrogate models in dynamic systems. Previously, he worked in a computer science lab at Peking University on an information retrieval and recommender system.
Brooklyn Brace was a fourth year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying Molecular and Cell Biology. She has an interest in microbiology and genomics and how they apply to bioengineering. Brooklyn joined the Arkin Lab in 2019, and she was working on the CUBES project in the MMFD division investigating genes important for nitrogen fixation. Previously, Brooklyn worked in a synthetic biology lab at Columbia University working on the development of a multiplexed drug screening platform for small molecule inhibitors of viral proteases.
Avery was a fourth year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley, currently working towards a double major in Economics and Molecular and Cell Biology with an emphasis in developmental genetics. She is interested in how the intersection of her two academic disciplines come together to further the research behind space exploration. In CUBES, Avery was working towards optimizing an elemental balance in a martian biomanufacturing system through the use of techno economic analysis. Outside of CUBES, Avery works at a biopharma consultancy and hopes to move into biotech in the future.
Anderson Lee was a third-year undergraduate student at UC Berkeley studying Bioengineering with a focus on Synthetic and Computational Biology. He was optimizing the production of biopharmaceuticals to be utilized during space travel. In previous companies, he has developed an ELISA procedure to determine the concentration of a tumor-detecting drug in biological samples and enhanced a mobile, quick diagnostic machine that scans for viruses. Previous to the Arkin Lab, he worked in Mohammed Mofrad’s Cell and Biomechanics Laboratory at UC Berkeley where he used neural networks with backpropagation to predict a virus’ host based on the genome of the virus. In the future, he sees himself using synthetic biology to conquer problems inherent to the nature of space travel. He believes that technology already present in nature and perfected with evolution can be the key to send humans to other planets.
As of 2020, Shunsuke is at the Research Institute for Bioscience Products and Fine Chemicals, Kawasaki, Japan,
As of 2021, Skyler is a PhD Student at the University of British Columbia.
