Executive Team

Mei-Yi is a fourth year BE PhD student at MIT in Katharina Ribbeck’s lab. She is studying the effects of mucin and mucin glycans on immune cells and epithelial cells with a focus on developing mucin-based treatments for bacterial vaginosis. She is interested in VC and entrepreneurship in biotech for women’s health and has been involved with MBG as a previous Entrepreneurship Initiative Director (2024-2025)
Mei-Yi Yu
Co-President

Claire is a senior undergraduate studying Biological Engineering & Mathematics. She is currently working in the Uhler Lab on developing a method to find gene expression patterns in spatial transcriptomics data. Claire previously served as VP of Finance (2024-2025)
& Senior Associate on UI (2023-2024).
Claire Wu
Co-President

Clarence is a senior undergraduate studying Biological Engineering & Chemistry. He is researching developing fluorescent biosensors for neuroimaging in the Boyden Lab. Previously, Clarence served as Director of UI (2024-2025),
Senior Associate in UI (2023-2024), and
Associate in UI (2022)
Clarence Zheng
Co-VP of Finance

Ayantu is a senior undergraduate studying Computer Science and Molecular Biology. Her research in the Cancer Data Science group works to identify the effects of abnormal alternative splicing and novel fusion transcripts in cancer. She has been previously involved with MBG as a Senior Associate (2023),
Social Chair (2023-2024), and
Career Fair Co-Director (2024-2025).
Ayantu Tamene
Co-VP of Finance

Sofia is a first -year PhD student in the Health Sciences and Technology program at MIT. She is currently rotating in labs that conduct research in the fields of tissue engineering and computational biology. Sofia was previously Associate (2023-2024) and Senior Associate (2024-2025 on UI as an MIT BE undergraduate.
Sofia Flores
Vice President of Communications
Initiative Directors

Zain is a sophomore undergraduate studying Biological Engineering & Business Management. He is in the development of ingestible and implantable devices for drug delivery and cell therapies and is exploring career opportunities at the intersection of life sciences and business. Zain was previously an Associate (2024-2025) in the Undergraduate Initiative.
Zain Arfoosh
Co-Director, Industry Initiative

Maysa is a Chemistry & Chemical Biology PhD Candidate at MIT. Her research is on the development and automation of high-throughput screening methods for DNA adductomics in aging, infectious disease, and cancer. She previously served as Associate (2024) and Senior Associate (2024-2025) in the Industry Initiative .
Maysa Ilamanova
Co-Director, Industry Initiative

Franklin is a Chemistry PhD candidate at MIT. Before starting at MIT, he worked for Factor Bioscience, a Cambridge start-up focused on mRNA and stem cell therapies. Now he works in Xiao Wang’s lab at the Broad Institute investigating the mechanisms behind novel mRNAs and mRNA delivery systems. Franklin was previously an Associate (2024-2025) in the Entrepreneurship Initiative .
Franklin Kostas
Co-Director, Entrepreneurship Initiative

Litsa is a 2nd year PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT. Advised by Bob Langer and Ana Jaklenec, she is currently developing novel drug delivery systems to treat bone metastases and chronic wounds.
Outside of the lab, she has a deep interest in biotech investing, entrepreneurship, and strategy, having interned in VC and consulting at Portal Innovations, Necessary Ventures, ClearView Healthcare Partners, and Northpond Ventures. Litsa previously served as Entrepreneurship Initiative Associate ( 2024-2025).
Litsa Kapsalis
Co-Director, Entrepreneurship Initiative

Katie is a senior undergraduate studying Biological Engineering & Artificial Intelligence. Katie is excited about combining computational and experimental methods to drive innovation in therapeutic synthetic biology. Her work has explored cancer cachexia, DNA origami–based therapeutic nanoparticles, and the evolution of human visual anatomy. Katie has been involved with MBG as Associate (2022-2023) & Senior Associate (2023-2025) in the Undergraduate Initiative.
Katie Spivakovsky
Co-Director, Undergraduate Initiative

Jeannie is a junior undergraduate studying Artificial Intelligence. She is broadly interested in the applications of AI for healthcare; I’m currently developing a multimodal LLM to assist clinicians as they perform differential diagnosis at the Multisensory Intelligence Group in the MIT Media Lab. Jeannie has been involved with as a Senior Associate, (2024-2025) and Associate (2023-2024) in the Undergraduate Initiative.
Jeannie She
Co-Director, Undergraduate Initiative

Nikitha is a junior undergraduate studying Computer Science & Molecular Biology. Her research in the Kellis Lab focuses on uncovering the evolutionary differences in regulatory elements between humans and Neanderthals, while her research in the Kamm Lab focuses on designing vascularized microfluidic brain organoids. Nikitha has been involved with MBG since Fall 2023.
Nikitha Thoduguli
Co-Director, Community Engagement Initiative

Diya is a junior undergraduate studying Biology and Computer Science. She is interested in cancer genomics, RNA biology, and precision medicine. Her research in the Vander Heiden Lab focuses on elucidating the metabolic dependencies of various cancers with the long-term goal of eventually utilizing them as therapeutic targets. She has been involved with MBG since Fall 2023.
Diya Ramesh
Co-Director, Community Engagement Initiative

Eleaner is a sophomore undergraduate student studying Chemical-Biological Engineering. She currently works in the Furst Lab, designing microbial electrochemical sensors to detect pesticides. She also researched algae-based polyurethanes at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Eleanor previously served as Career Fair & Sponsorship Associate (2024-2025).
Eleanor Murphy
Co-Director, Career Fair & Sponsorship

Chloe is a sophomore undergraduate studying Chemical-Biological Engineering. She conducts research in the Langer Lab at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, where she is developing thermostable, pulsatile delivery systems for mRNA vaccines to enhance global vaccine accessibility. Chloe previously served as Associate for Career Fair & Sponsorship (2024).
Chloe Tan
Co-Director, Career Fair & Sponsorship
Senior Associates

Carter is a sophomore undergraduate student studying Biological Engineering. He is interested in the intersection of immunology and computational biology. His research in the Gaiha Lab at the Ragon Institute focuses on using Biolayer Interferometry and computational modeling to characterize T-cell receptor binding and identify stabilizing mutations. Carter was previously an Associate – Undergraduate Initiative (2024-2025)
Carter Rogers
Undergraduate Initiative

Nupur is a junior undergraduate studying Biology. She been working in the Prescott Lab researching airway-brain physiology for the past two years. She has also explored health policy through internships at the state and national level. Long-term, she plans on pursuing a career as a neurosurgeon and physician-leader, working to shape health systems. Previously, Nupur was an Associate (2024-2025) in the Undergraduate Initiative.
Nupur Ballal
Undergraduate Initiative

Joseph is a sophomore undergraduate studying Mechanical Engineering.He is an Undergraduate Researcher at the Traverso Lab, developing long-term drug delivery mechanisms using microneedle array patches. He is extremely interested in the fields of medical devices and surgical robotics. Joseph was previously anUndergraduate Initiative Associate (2024-2025).
Joseph Mei
Undergraduate Initiative

Peter Jedlicka
Undergraduate Initiative

Tara is a Biology 4th year PhD Student at MIT. She is graduate student in Sinisa Hrvatin’s lab at the Whitehead Institute, where she studies temperature-sensitive neurons in the preoptic area of the hypothalamus. Previously, she worked in life sciences consulting at ClearView Healthcare Partners and interned at Genentech during undergraduate. She was previously a Senior Associate (2024-2025) and Associate (2023-2024) in the Industry Initiative.
Tara Thakurta
Industry Initiative

Katarina is a Postdoctoral Associate in the Biological Engineering Department at MIT. Her research in the Lauffenburger Lab aims to use computational systems biology approaches to explore how our immune system responds to infectious diseases. Katarina was previously an Associate (2024-2025) in the Industry Initiative.
Katarina DiLillo
Industry Initiative

Rachel Shen
Industry Initiative

Sarah Syed
Entrepreneurship Initiative

Jasmine is a sophomore undergraduate studying Biological Engineering. She is researching in the Belcher Lab, using organoid models to study the progression of ovarian cancer, and in the Neuroscience Statistics Research Lab, studying nociceptive responses to anesthesia.
Jasmine Xing
Community Engagement Initiative
Faculty Advisory Board
Leadership Alumni
Founders
James W. Weis
Founding President
Nathan Stebbins
Founding President
Vyas Ramanan
Founding Treasurer
Andrew Warren
Founding Secretary
Katie Spielberg
Founder
Leadership Alumni
Raven Reddy
President, 2016-17
Minsoo Khang
Founding Officer
Tony Kulesa
Founding Officer
Anika Gupta
Founding Undergraduate President
Hao Xing
Founding Undergraduate President
Brett Geiger
President, 2017-18
Ashvin Bashyam
President, 2017-18
Sam Huang
Undergraduate President, 2017-18
Greg Ekchian
Director of Finance, 2017-18
Jessica Carr
Director of Communications, 2017-18
Rachit Neupane
President, 2018-19
Catie Matthews
President, 2018-19
Kristen Overly
Undergraduate President, 2019-20
Dave Lin
Undergraduate President, 2019-20
Lena Afeyan
President, 2019-21
Josh Murdock
President, 2019-21
Jenna Aronson
Vice President of Finance, 2019-21
Susana Hawken
Vice President of Professional Development, 2020-21
Maria Zagorulya
Vice President of Communications, 2019-21
Sam Goldman
President, 2021-22
Desmond Edwards
President, 2021-22
Keegan Mendez
President, 2022-23
Morgan Janes
President, 2022-23
Sherry Nyeo
Undergraduate President, 2021-22
Vice President of Finance, 2022-23
Vikram Sundar
President, 2023-24
Sarah Syed
President, 2023-24