In May we also said goodbye to Professor Marina Marjanović, who has worked at CLIMB as the Outreach and Education Coordinator since the Center’s inception. After spending over 15 years at the University of Illinois in various capacities, she’s finally made the difficult decision to retire for good. During the course of her career, Professor Marjanović has been listed as an author on over 100 publications. She’s been a pillar within the Bioengineering Department, specifically in the Biophotonics Imaging Lab. For CLIMB, she developed, ran, and managed the Biophotonics Summer School. Marina has an incredible capacity to fill up any room she’s in with her exuberant personality, her rich commentary, and the breadth of expertise. Her leadership, care, and knowledge will be missed, though hopefully we haven’t seen the last of her within these walls.
As we say goodbye to Marina, we welcome Professor Ali Ansari to take her place. Prof. Ansari graduated with his PhD from Illinois’ BioE department in 2018. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Case Western University and few years teaching at Bucknell University, he was hired as a Teaching Assistant Professor within his former department here at the U of I. Prof. Ansari specializes in game-based learning. “I want to make science less scary and more accessible,” he says. He also loves games in his spare time as well, particularly card games like Magic: The Gathering and One Piece, as well as various board games and video games. Ali has already successfully taken over the Biophotonics Summer School from Marina, and we look forward to seeing him grow, personally and professionally, alongside CLIMB.