Alumni Members
Tony Huang
Undergraduate Student
Email: tonyh@illinois.edu
Lab: VMBSB 3811
Tony was a student majoring in Bioengineering at UIUC and worked on behavioral testing, genotyping and machine learning for data acquisition. He is starting his PhD in Electrical Engineering at Purdue University in the Fall of 2025 and enjoys playing with his cat, Ollie, along with hiking and photography in his free time.
Education
- BA, Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Doctoral Student, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University
Moudar Dweydari
Undergraduate Student
Email: mdweyd2@illinois.edu
Mo worked on behavioral testing and genotyping. He was accepted to Georgetown University Medical School starting fall of 2024.
Education
- BS Kinesiology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Medical Student, Georgetown University
Jill Hook
Undergraduate Student
Email: jrhook2@illinois.edu
Lab: VMBSB 3811
Jill’s research is focused on using immunohistochemistry to determine the identify of monoaminergic cell populations in the brains of mice. After graduating with a Bachelors degree from UIUC, she wishes to attend a Genetic Counseling Program where she then will be able to one day become a Genetic Counselor in either a hospital or research lab based setting.
Education
- BS in Integrative Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Student, Masters of Science in Human Genetics and Genomic Data Analytics, Keck Graduate Institute, Claremont, CA
Positions
- Genetic Testing Case Coordinator, Reproductive Genetic Innovations, Lockport, IL
Sam Rahman
Undergraduate Student
Email: srahma37@illinois.edu
Lab: VMBSB 3811
Sam uses computer vision and machine learning applications to make tools for generating and analyzing complex social behavior data from videos. His goal is to train existing software and methods to the task of measuring discrete aspects of social behaviors that is accurate, unbiased, and more reproducible than human experimenter observational scoring which is a time-consuming and susceptible to inter-investigator variability.
Education
- BS Individual Plans of Study in Neuroscience and Econometrics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Student, Masters of Science in Economics, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany
Leah Hinderman
Undergraduate Student
Email: lch3@illinois.edu
Lab: VMBSB 3811
Leah’s research involves performing mouse DNA genotyping/husbandry and using immunohistochemistry to view the expression of monoaminergic neurotransmitters in the brain of mice. After graduation, she will pursue a career in the medical device or pharmaceutical industry as an R&D engineer.
Education
- BS in Bioengineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Positions
- CQV Consultant, Sequence Inc., Boston, MA
Dr. Noelle James
Founding Lab Manager
Email: nholmes3@illinois.edu
My main research interests are behavioral genetics and neuroscience. Specifically, my work has focused on how genes contribute to social behavior.
Education
- PhD, Neuroscience, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- BA, Psychology, Washington University in St. Louis