The Outreach team focuses on creating online events with the aim of bringing European Synthetic Biology to everyone.
Catarina Almeida
Catarina discovered Synthetic Biology during her undergraduate degree, where she unsuccessfully tried to start her university’s first iGEM team. Redemption came in Edinburgh, where she studied Systems and Synthetic Biology, actually did iGEM, fell in love with synbio for sustainability, and developed a lasting feud with programming and modelling. Despite being unable to keep a houseplant alive, she has spent the last two years working in plant Synthetic Biology, most recently at the University of Cambridge, and will soon start a PhD in Bioelectrochemistry. Now Outreach Manager for the European Synthetic Biology Society, Catarina leads a brilliant team creating fun, accessible events, proving that synthetic biology is for everyone, not just people who enjoy equations and graphs.
Head of Outreach Team
Yassin Somoue-Chafik
Yassin’s passion for Synthetic Biology began when he was 15, and since then, he has been deeply involved in the field. He is particularly interested in tackling real-world challenges through genetic engineering, focusing on oncology, infectious diseases, and bioremediation. Yassin loves exploring different biological chassis and applying them to areas like space exploration, cell-free systems, and even plants—something he also works on as part of iGEM, where he serves as an iGEM Ambassador for Europe. Let’s change the world!
Outreach Coordinator
Outreach coordinatorDavide Cois
Davide is currently a PhD graduate in biophysics at EPFL (Switzerland). He is passionate about the physics of life: understanding the principles that govern living systems as ensembles of thermodynamic reactions. His research addresses synthetic biology problems using an interdisciplinary approach combining biology and physics. As an outreach coordinator, he aims to contribute to the organisation of the EuSynBioS events by promoting cross-disciplinary dialogues among experts and reaching a broad, diverse audience interested in Synthetic Biology.
Cathal O’Reilly
Cathal is a PhD student in the Scrutton lab at The University of Manchester. His work focuses on the use of ML/AI for the engineering of terpene synthases. He first got involved in synbio research during his Master's in synthetic biology & biotech at the University of Edinburgh, where he was part of their overgraduate iGEM team. He is also interested and engaged in promoting scientific collaboration and innovation, demonstrated by his work as the co-managing director of the Manchester chapter of Nucleate UK.
Outreach Advisor
Ruben Vazquez Uribe
Ruben Vazquez Uribe studies how microorganisms can be engineered to improve food production, human health, and environmental sustainability. He is a Researcher and Scientific Project Manager at the VIB Center for Microbiology (KU Leuven) and a strong advocate for translating synthetic biology research into real-world impact.Ruben joined us as an advisor in summer 2025, supporting our seminar programme and connecting us with experts across the Synthetic Biology community.
Outreach Advisor