Grant Pitel: Grant is a research assistant at the University of Illinois, pursuing a Ph.D. He has professional interests in power conversion, control theory and design, and digital signal processing. Grant has bachelors in Electrical and Computer Engineering and minor in Computer Science from Cornell University, where he also met and married Sheryl Rubin Pitel. They both reside in Champaign, IL. Some of Grant’s personal interests are bicycling, aquariums, home theater systems, and home automation.

Sheryl Rubin-Pitel: Sheryl earned her bachelors degree in Biology from Cornell University in 2003. Currently she is a research assistant at the University of Illinois pursuing a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering, and is a Fellow of both the NIH Cell and Molecular Biology Training Grant and the NSF Graduate Reasearch Fellowship Program. She is proficient in the culturing and transformation of bacteria, DNA cloning, protein expression and analysis, bioinformatics tools such as ClustalW and BLAST, and analytical techniques including HPLC. Her professional focus is largely on the engineering of enzymes by rational design and directed molecular evolution. Some of Sheryl’s personal interests include photography, drawing, fresh and salwater aquarium fish, aviculture, and, naturally, anything to do with dogs.

Adam Pitel: Adam is currently studying for his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Computer Science at Bucknell University. He will graduate from Bucknell in 2008. Besides engineering, Adam enjoys all aspects of film. Click here to view his films.