doctoral mentoring
We are always recruiting graduate students interested in conducting fundamental and translational research in the iGEM laboratories. Students must be interested in pursuing doctoral research at the interface of one or more of the following areas: genomics, evolution, analytics, biodiversity, epidemiology, and medicine. Students will have the opportunity to engage in discovering biological patterns and elucidating processes that govern and generate these patterns. Depending on their interest, we encourage all students to make predictions based on evolutionary knowledge learned and develop translational products (including software, databases, and general techniques) to accelerate our understanding of biological phenomenon and to apply our knowledge to improving the human condition.
Interested students are advised to directly contact the iGEM faculty of interest. Please send your detailed curriculum vitae and a statement of research interest in a PDF file to the desired faculty member. Remember to include information on your computational and/or laboratory proficiency in your resume.
Ultimately, all doctoral students will be required to apply to a graduate program in the Department of Biology or the Department of Computer and Information Sciences. In special cases, iGEM laboratories will also house doctoral students from other departments. All students are supported by research and teaching assistantships. Students with outstanding credentials will be nominated for Presidential Fellowships. We strongly encourage all incoming and first year graduate students to apply for extramural graduate fellowships (e.g., NSF Graduate fellowship). You should contact the appropriate faculty member to develop such fellowship applications.

Sam Boudeau
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Biology
Mentor: Kulathinal

Joshua Bruce
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Helmus

Stefani Cannon
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Helmus

Axl Cepeda
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Biology
Mentor: Escalante

Sky Gao
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Mentor: Shi

Hannah Kim
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Pond

Chong Li
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Mentor: Shi

Bin Li
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Mentor: Shi

Madeline McGhee
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Liberles

Alyssa Pivirotto
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Biology
Mentor: Hey

Lisa Schmelkin
Doctoral Candidate, Bioinformatics
Department of Biology
Mentor: Kumar

Avery Selberg
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Pond

Sudip Sharma
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Kumar

Chen Song
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Computer and Information Sciences
Mentor: Shi


Amanda Wilson
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Liberles

Albert Doughan
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Kulathinal

Hannah Verdonk
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Pond

Jason Lamanna
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Carnevale

John Allard
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Kumar/Gerhard

Mina Mahboubi
Doctoral Candidate, Biology
Department of Biology
Mentor: Carnevale

Rohan Alibutud
Doctoral Candidate, Bioinformatics
Deparment of Biology
Mentor: Kumar