Meet Sihan

Sihan Chen is a rising senior at Redmond High School in Redmond, Washington. She is fascinated by how ever-evolving technology informs understanding of human health and wellness to make strides in medicine, especially through computational biology. She loves the inquisitive and interdisciplinary nature of research through a systems biology lens and hopes to explore biomedical engineering in college.

When she’s not at ISB, Sihan leads her FTC robotics team through building a robot and hosting outreach events to increase STEM opportunities in her community. She also volunteers at a therapeutic riding center for special needs kids, works as a swim instructor, and serves on the board of her school’s band, Future Club, and Peer Tutoring Club. In her free time, Sihan loves reading, hiking, cuddling with her cat, and trying new foods.

This summer, Sihan and her partner Jonathan worked in the Baliga lab under mentors Dr. Selva Rupa Christinal Immanuel and Dr. Mario Arrieta-Ortiz to characterize the adaptation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) to external stimuli. Through implementing R pipelines to analyze and interpret high-throughput data of Mtb exposed to different carbon sources and antitubercular drugs, they were able to gain insight into the metabolic flexibility of the bacterium. Their work has implications for a more effective drug regimen for tuberculosis.