Meet the team

Kytos Team

Kytos team is formed by specialists in different fields. Here scientists, gamers, designers, sociologists and computer engineers meet to create games based in up-to-date scientific concepts in the field of biology. We search for the best balance between scientific content and fun.

President

Mariana Garrido

Mariana is a Master Biochemist (meaning she has a Master of Science degree in Biochemistry) and is working towards her PhD in Biological Sciences.

Mariana is passionate about virology and making science more equitable, diverse and open to all. In her free time, you will most likely find her at a concert… Other than that, she devours everything related to true crime, loves to kickbox and play volleyball, enjoys cuddles with her kitty, solving puzzles and playing board games. If you ever meet her, don’t ask her about her favourite band – she has 2 and will talk about them for hours.

Vice President

Kuba Orłowski

Kuba worked as a system administrator and a programmer for a couple of years before realizing that working in science is much more fun (and still involves a significant amount of tinkering with computers). Having made the transition, he got his PhD in control theory in 2019, working on design of adaptive controllers for brain stimulation and now has recurring dreams of electric sheep.

In his free time he likes playing board games and pretending to be competitive as well as reading about psychology, space exploration and how modern movies fit in the Great Conversation. Approached in the wild, he’ll most likely enthusiastically tell you about the latest thing he’s been obsessed with (because it’s cool but also so flawed!) or about that one time he was hitch-hiking through Europe. Hates boredom.

Human Resources director

Susannah Shissler

Susannah has been drawn to immunology since her first brush with it during a summer internship on plant biology in 2012. She went on to study the roles of NKT cells in cancer immunotherapy during her PhD which she completed in Fall 2019. Currently, her postdoctoral research aims to understand factors that influence maintenance of the thymus (a key organ for immune cell production).

Outside of lab, Susannah has many hobbies. She enjoys being active including indoor and outdoor climbing, yoga, picnics, hiking, and backpacking. Susannah also enjoys reading (on the beach or the rooftop deck in the summer or under a blankie on the couch in the winter), playing board games, and snuggling with her kitties. She is especially excited to join the Kytos team to combine her passions for science, education outreach, and board games.

GAME DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR

Lucas Branco

Lucas is smile and laughter walking!

He loves meeting new people and listening to them talk about their passions, talk about games, music and human personality. He struggles a lot finding balance between an expansive and objective conversation. His degree in Digital Media Design, paired with his curiosity for a range of different topics, allowed him to pursue ways to translate knowledge into fun and vice versa.

In his free time, you’ll usually find Lucas in his “cave” listening to weird agitated music, playing air drums and games or — when the pandemic allows — at a bar or party with his friends.

Visual Arts Coordinator

Luma Branco

Luma has an artistic mind. Some of her favored ways of expression and communications are drawings, schemes and topics. She’s a compulsive learner with intense feelings, but very practical and always prefer people to be sincere, even if it hurts.

With a versatile nature, she works with many different things, like illustration, architecture and ceramic. Her interests include biology, human behavior, education, art and transforming things into reality.

She loves meeting interesting people, pets and new places, but will need some time alone to recharge. When low on energy, chocolate, cheese (especially melted), spicy food, coffee or red wine are sure to cheer her up.

If you bump into her while traveling, she’ll probably be wandering around the city with no planned direction observing people and buildings, in a park stalking crows, doing her photosynthesis or eating her second breakfast.

Translation Coordinator

Samantha Giroux

Samantha holds a master’s degree in criminology and currently works as a social worker at the Centre multiethnique de Québec and Viol-Secours. She supports/assists temporary foreign workers, as well as victims of sexual assault. Passionate about critical criminology as it relates to social critique/criticism and the defense of society’s “invisibilized”, she is particularly involved with women, families and people from ethnocultural communities. This passion is not only reflected in her work, but also in her social implications and in her daily life.

She believes that listening and giving voice to each individual is key to making a difference on a personal and social level. For her, the democratization of education and knowledge is a way to fight against social inequalities and to participate more directly in social change.

José Américo

Jota grew up into a Computer Engineer that ventured into Biology and now studies the physiology of growing older. He finished a PhD thesis in cellular biology in 2020 and is now diving deeper into the ocean that lies at the intersection of biology and informatics.
He likes to tinker with stuff and has a list of side projects that will be completed at some point in the future. He also enjoys exploring the world and has to hold himself to not make people impatient with too many questions about their perspective of the world. The more he explores, the more he understands how precious human culture and knowledge are. On top of that, he also believes that we need to find solutions as a society to pass this background to those yet to be born by leveraging the curiosity intrinsic to human nature.

Pedro Tan

Pedro is a PhD student in computational biology and immunology. He started working with wet-lab molecular biology but stepped away from the bench to do research with bioinformatics. He has always been passionate about science, arts, education and loves intersections between them. Extremely curious, he enjoys learning as much as possible about people, the world, himself and how they all relate.

In his free time he has many hobbies, from listening to and playing all kinds of music, various types of games, dancing, hiking, martial arts, museums, cinema… the list goes on. Difficult to find time for them all, but juggling in-between life.