Alumni
HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
Maya Koppikar (Summer 2022)
Maya worked in Dr. George’s group during as a rising high school senior to identify RNA-Seq signatures that define EMT (Epithelial to Mesenchymal Transition) patterns. She collaborated with Dr. George and Annice Najafi over GitHub to develop an R Shiny application. Maya is currently an undergraduate Electrical and Computer engineering Honors student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her areas of interest include integrated circuits and embedded systems. In her leisure, she is a competitive marathoner and enjoys discovering the best taquerias in Austin.
VISITING SCHOLARS
Paras Jain (June 2023 — December 2023)
Paras is a PhD student working with Dr. Mohit Kumar Jolly at Centre for Biosystems Science and Engineering at the Indian Insitute of Science. He applies his electrical engineering background to appreciate cellular systems as complex dynamical control systems that are robust to perturbations, while also being plastic with respect to environmental changes. Working with Dr. George during the Summer and Fall of 2023, Paras studied optimal decision making using dynamic programming to explore how cell populations adapt to fluctuating environments to optimize their fitness (growth). He is also interested in developmental economics, which includes how optimal social policy designs and implementation may be designed to fight social inequity and climate change. His time in Dr. George’s group provided him training in stochastic dynamic programming, which is relevant for this distinct application as well.