2020 Residents

Team I

Maria Juliana ​Rolon Rojas
Maria Juliana is a Colombian Bacteriologist with a master's degree in Synthetic Biology from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil. She is affiliated with the Laboratory of Synthetic and Systematic Biology. Her main research topic is the study of transcriptional regulation of environmental bacteria in response to changes in their environment, in order to understand the logic behind the decision-making of these microorganisms and characterize new genetic tools that allow their use in areas of biomedicine and biotechnology. In addition to academic life, she acts as coordinator and directs PLOS+, an initiative of Colombian educators that seeks to bring science to communities without access to quality education with accessible experiments and tools. In her spare time, Juliana writes opinion columns and is an enthusiast of the world of art and architecture.
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Fiammetta Ghedini
Fiammetta Ghedini works on the frontier between science and communication with a focus on drawing and illustration. In 2011 she earned her PhD at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, Pisa, and was visiting researcher at UCL (University College London) under the supervision of Prof. Semir Zeki. Her thesis, The Illusion of Ambiguity: from Bistable Perception to Anthropomorphism, was a multidisciplinary work at the merging of neuroscience, art, and human interaction with technologies. Since, she has worked with universities and educational institutions around the world to illustrate science via drawing and video including at the Sony Computer Science Laboratories in Paris, Goldsmiths University, University College London (UCL), City University of New York (CUNY) and AAAS. Ghedini is also co-founder of RIVA Illustrations, a visual arts agency dedicated to science communication. 

Team II

Shanthi Chandrasekar
Shanthi Chandrasekar is a multimedia and multidisciplinary artist with a B.Sc. in Physics and an M.A. in Psychology. Growing up in a Department of Atomic Energy township in India fed her aspirations to become a scientist and an artist. Though she did not become a scientist, she instead experiments with mediums, ideas, and concepts in her studio as an artist. She has won the Maryland State Arts Council, Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County Individual Artist and the Maryland Traditions Master Apprentice
awards among others. Her science-inspired work has been exhibited at FermiLab, American Center of Physics, AAAS, NIH and other spaces. Her artwork is in the D.C. Art Bank, Montgomery Public Art Trust, Suburban Hospital, Inova Cancer Institute, and other private collections. Apart from exhibiting and teaching art, she also illustrates children and science books. She works from her studio at Studio B in Bethesda, Maryland.
Leilhae
Leilhae works at the intersection of physics, visual arts and literature. She is an associate researcher at the University of Paris, where she studies the nature of spacetime with the gravitational waves signals emitted by black holes. She has previously extensively worked in the field of particle physics and has occupied positions in several research institutions and collaborations worldwide. She draws inspiration from her scientific research into her artistic practice, that takes the shape of illustrations, collages, curation and written pieces. Ultimately, she is as fascinated by the rigorous logic of science than the exhilarating freedom of art, and the beauty she can find in each.

Team III

Andrew
​Scarpelli
Andrew Scarpelli is a professor from Chicago with a doctorate in molecular biology. He has taught at multiple universities and participated in research in synthetic biology and microbiology. The main focus of Andrew’s professional work is exploring the boundaries of biotechnology and its interaction with the outside world, whether that be its use as a media in art, a subject of ethical debate, a boon or a challenge to society, and, especially, in the lives of everyday people. Andrew is the cofounder and president of ChiTownBio, Chicago’s first public biolab focusing on allowing everyone access to the tools and knowledge of biotechnology within the confines of a highly supervised but easily accessible wetlab. Andrew is currently an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Global Biosummit Fellow, and a proud citizen scientist. Andrew is a proud Chicagoan, avid biker, urban explorer, and armchair philosopher.
Kristin Lucas
Kristin Lucas intervenes in systems and paradigms to create space for self-expression and agency. She explores connections across disciplines, proposes kinship within ecosystems - biological and technological, and leverages play in experimental works that resonate with humor and philosophical ponderings. She is the recent recipient of a 2020 NYSCA Individual Artists Grant and commissions from Onassis Foundation and The Whitney Museum of American Art’s Sunrise/Sunset series. Lucas has been featured in Art in America, Artforum, Engadget, and Hyperallergic; and has presented her work at And/Or Gallery, Aurora Picture Show, Dia Center for the Arts, FACT Liverpool, HeK Basel, Nam June Paik Art Center, MoMA, New Museum, Pioneer Works, Postmasters, The Wrong Biennale, and ZKM; and through festivals and programs, including: BAM Teknopolis, Cinekid, EarthX, Engadget Alternate Realities, Print Screen, StoriesXFuture, TIFF, and WSJ Future of Everything. Lucas serves as art faculty for the University of Texas at Austin.

Team IV

Eric Zeigler
Eric Zeigler is an artist, designer, and researcher whose current work involves photography and unconventional transformation of images. He received an MFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute, and exhibits his work nationally and internationally. Recently his work has been exhibited at the CICA Museum in Seoul, South Korea, and at the NIDA International Photography Symposium in Nida, Lithuania. Zeigler is an Assistant Professor of Art in the Department of Art at the University of Toledo. He created and runs the Art Print Center which serves as a hub for all digital artwork production by university students, faculty, and local artists.
Aaron Ellison
Aaron M. Ellison is the Senior Research Fellow in Ecology in Harvard’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Senior Ecologist & Deputy Director at the Harvard Forest, and a semi-professional photographer and writer. He studies the disintegration and reassembly of ecosystems following natural and anthropogenic disturbances; thinks about the relationship between the Dao and the Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis; reflects on the critical and reactionary stance of Ecology relative to Modernism, blogs as The Unbalanced Ecologist, and tweets as @AMaxEll17. He is the author of A Primer of Ecological Statistics  (2004/2012), A Field Guide to the Ants of New England  (2012), Stepping in the Same River Twice: Replication in Biological Research (2017), Carnivorous Plants: Physiology, Ecology, and Evolution (2018), Scaling Sarracenia: Ecology of a Model System (2021), and Vanishing Point (2017), a collection of photographs and poetry from the Pacific Northwest. Whenever he can, he works wood.