Manu Agni: How Deliveries Shape Our City
he/him
Concurrent degrees: Master’s Student, Urban Planning & Civil Engineering
College of Built Environments & College of Engineering, Seattle
Manu Agni is a graduate student at the University of Washington pursuing a Master of Urban Planning and a Master of Science in Civil Engineering, with a focus in transportation engineering. His interests center on urban freight, smart cities, curb management, and data-informed approaches to improving urban transportation systems. He currently works with the Seattle Department of Transportation’s curb management team and has also worked with the U.S. Department of Transportation and transportation consulting firms. Manu earned his undergraduate degree in Urban Planning from the University of California, San Diego, where he served as student body president. Outside of his academic and professional work, he enjoys cycling, using public transit, and exploring cities.
Manu is staff at the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT). SDOT provided data and some advisory support for his research.
Leah Anderson: Microbial Evolution – Live in the Classroom
she/her
Ph.D. Student, Genome Sciences
School of Medicine, Seattle
Leah Anderson is completing her PhD in Genome Sciences this year. Originally from Cincinnati Ohio, she earned two bachelor’s degrees from The Ohio State University: a Bachelor of Science in Molecular Genetics and a Bachelor of Music in Violin Performance. Leah’s graduate work in Maitreya Dunham’s lab focuses on yeast evolution and genetics, with emphasis on how microbes evolve drug resistance. Her thesis builds on “yEvo,” a science education program developed in the Dunham Lab, which brings hands-on yeast evolution experiments to high school classrooms. Through yEvo, Leah combines laboratory evolution, genome sequencing, and science education to study drug resistance while giving students the opportunity to participate in real research.
Beyond her thesis work, Leah is deeply committed to outreach and education. For four summers in graduate school, she led a camp called “Genome Hackers,” where high school students learn molecular biology and use Python coding to explore genetics research. She is also a co-founder of Community Organizers in Genome sciences (or COGS), where she served as lead of the outreach subcommittee for two years. Outside the lab, Leah enjoys playing violin, swing dancing, playing soccer, hiking, biking, and playing board games.
- Affiliations: Member, Genetics Society of America; Co-Founder, UW Community Organizers in Genome Sciences
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: NHGRI Training Grant; NSF Science Education Partnership Award
Tamara Aránguiz-Rago: When Climate Turns Off, But Tectonics Do Not
she/her
PhD Student, Earth & Space Sciences
College of the Environment, Seattle campus
Tamara is a tectonic geomorphologist, meaning she studies how Earth’s landscapes are shaped. Her research focuses on how the surface of our planet changes in extremely dry environments with active faulting, using the Atacama Desert as a natural laboratory. She combines fieldwork, lab analyses, and computer models to measure how fast the land is moving and eroding. During her PhD, she explored how strike-slip faults, where the ground moves sideways, leave subtle signals in the landscape, and how those signals can reveal changes in climate and tectonic activity over timescales from decades to millions of years.
- Affiliations: 2025 Graubard Fellowship – UW Program on Climate Change; 2025 Dr. Jody Bourgeois Endowed Fellowship in Sedimentary Geology; 2020-2024 Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship
Satria Ardianuari: Can Prosthetic Leg Features Help Reduce Knee Stress?
he/him
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering, Seattle
Satria is a PhD candidate in the University of Washington Department of Mechanical Engineering whose research focuses on improving mobility for people with limb loss through prosthetic technology. With an MS in Rehabilitation Science and Technology from the University of Pittsburgh, he is motivated to help people with limb loss move independently and more safely by bridging clinical care and engineering innovation. Originally from Indonesia, he came to the United States as a Fulbright Program scholar to pursue graduate education, an experience that shaped his commitment to advancing evidence-based rehabilitation technologies. His research combines prosthetics, movement analysis, and biomechanical engineering to generate evidence that informs prosthetic design and guides clinical decision-making. Through this work, he aims to improve mobility, reduce long-term secondary complications, and enhance quality of life for people with limb loss. Through the UW Three Minute Thesis, he seeks to make this research accessible to broader audiences and to highlight its potential impact on improving the lives of those with limb loss.
- Affiliations: Member – International Society for Prosthetics & Orthotics; Rehabilitation Engineering & Assistive Technology Society of North America; American Society of Biomechanics; International Society of Biomechanics; American Society of Mechanical Engineers
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: 2024 ACL Switzer Research Fellowship for Doctoral Dissertation Research; 2022 Orthotic & Prosthetic Foundation for Education and Research Fellowship
Héctor E. Delgado Díaz: To Look at Another Earth
he/him
Dual-Title Ph.D. Student, Astronomy & Astrobiology
College of Arts & Sciences, Seattle
Héctor grew up in Cayey, a small town tucked into the mountains of Puerto Rico, where the sky on a clear night does most of the work if you want to fall in love with astronomy. He stayed close to home for college, earning his bachelor’s degree at the Universidad de Puerto Rico en Cayey, before moving to Los Angeles for a master’s in physics at Cal State LA. He is now a dual-title PhD candidate in Astronomy and Astrobiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, where he studies the climates of exoplanets through computational simulations.
Outside his research, Héctor co-founded Raising eSTEAM, a program bringing science and astrobiology to incarcerated youth in the Seattle area, and has served as a Senator in the UW Graduate and Professional Student Senate. He has held fellowships from the GEM Consortium, ARCS Foundation, and the Bonderman Travel Fellowship, the last of which sent him on a solo eight-month-long journey through countries he had only ever read about. He believes science belongs to everyone and works to make it more accessible to those who haven’t always had a seat at the table.
- Affiliations: Astronomy Senator, UW Graduate & Professional Student Senate; Co-Founder, UW Raising eSTEAM
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: 2019-2022 ARCS Scholar; 2021 Bonderman Fellowship; 2019 GEM Fellowship
Youngshang Han: Don’t Waste Heat, Use It!
he/him
Ph.D. Student, Mechanical Engineering
College of Engineering, Seattle
Youngshang Han is a PhD candidate in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Washington, Seattle, where his research bridges advanced manufacturing and thermal engineering, spanning flexible and wearable thermoelectric devices, thermal interface materials, and soft composite fabrication using 3D printing. His work has appeared in Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, and Advanced Functional Materials, with eight publications and three patents to his name. He completed a research scientist internship at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2024. His contributions have been recognized with the Clean Energy Institute Graduate Fellowship and multiple ASME Best Paper Awards. Youngshang is expected to complete his PhD in June 2026.
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: 2024-2025 UW Clean Energy Institute Graduate Fellowship; 2023 Nano Engineered-Systems Student Scientific Achievement Award; 2022 Albert S. Kobayashi Endowed Fund in Mechanical Engineering
Connor Krolak: Ultrasound and Microbubbles – Imaging and Changing Tumor Blood Flow
he/him
PhD Student, Bioengineering
College of Engineering & School of Medicine, Seattle
Connor Krolak is a PhD student in Dr. Mike Averkiou’s lab in Bioengineering. Originally from Atlanta and raised in Kentucky, Connor earned bachelor’s degrees in biomedical and electrical engineering from Vanderbilt University before heading straight into his PhD. In his graduate studies, Connor has been investigating how ultrasound and microbubbles can be used to improve the diagnosis and treatment of liver cancer. He hopes that this work will advance direct ultrasound innovation in the clinic through the use of tools already present in hospital systems. Beyond the many hours spent in the lab, Connor enjoys mentoring other students both in the lab and as a graduate lead of a Bioengineering Without Borders team, and has received the 2025 Bioengineering Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring Award. In the rare moments he’s not at UW, Connor enjoys birdwatching (a bit too much), cooking, running, writing and playing music and hanging out with his dog Alistair.
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: 2022-2023 TL1 Translational Research Training Program – UW Institute for Translational Health Sciences
Paul Morgan: Damability Maps Can Help Prevent Landslide Dam Disasters
he/him
PhD Student, Earth & Space Sciences
College of the Environment, Seattle
Paul Morgan is currently a PhD candidate in the department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of Washington. His research at UW focuses on the impact of landslides both in generating hazards and in altering the shape of the landscape. Before coming to UW, Paul completed a Masters degree at Cornell University where he studied uniquely preserved rockfall deposits in the Atacama Desert. He also worked at the Earth Observatory of Singapore where he studied earthquakes off the shore of Sumatra, Indonesia using the signals recorded in GPS and coral microatolls. He began his scientific career at the University of California, Santa Cruz where he majored in Earth Science and studied the seismic signatures of ocean waves crashing on sea cliffs.
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program; NSF Cascadia CoPes Hub
Momo Song Suzuki: What Do Trans Educators Make Possible?
they/them
Master’s Student, Education – Special Education & Multilingual Education
College of Education, Seattle
Momo is completing a masters in Special Education and Multilingual Education, where they’re practicing how to individualize learning environments for students. They are inspired by their students, indebted to multiple generations of their family’s commitment to education, and sustained by love from their Queer community.
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: 2026-2027 Fulbright ETA Award; Helen Mosio Scholarship in Special Education; Washington Educator Workforce Program Scholarship
Emily Teets: Parkinson’s Disease Genes Control Glial Pruning of Neurons
they/them
Ph.D. Student, Molecular & Cellular Biology
The Graduate School, Seattle
Emily is a fifth-year graduate student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology department. They are completing their thesis research in the lab of Dr. Aakanksha Singhvi. There, they study the role of Parkinson’s Disease related genes in the engulfment of neuron receptive endings using C. elegans as a model organism. Their research hopes to address unmet preventative and therapeutic needs of the many at risk or living with neurodegenerative diseases. When not at the bench, Emily enjoys boxing, hiking, and going to local drag shows.
- Scholarships, fellowships, or awards received: T32 Biological Mechanisms of Healthy Aging Training Program