Hi there! I'm Iman.

Background

In my final year of undergraduate studies, I realized I had chosen the wrong major. I had always been drawn to STEM, but had committed early to a path that no longer felt right. My last semester I loaded up on everything I’d missed, Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, did well, loved it, and graduated with a degree that no longer reflected where I was going.

For about a year I searched for an entry point. I attended conferences, worked with large nonprofits, kept my mind sharp. I was moving and learning, but hadn’t found the thing yet. Then I went on a trip with a group of founders whose worldview collapsed into one idea: you can just do things. It sounds obvious. It didn’t click for me until then.

I came back, applied to HTGAA, found a lab in Vancouver, and got to work. I knew within weeks I was exactly where I was supposed to be. My current project: engineering the first autonomously bioluminescent plant using the firefly luciferin pathway. The core insight is that vascular plants already produce the precursors, the missing piece is the enzymatic steps to complete luciferin synthesis. I’m building those in from a community lab, with no institutional backing and no safety net. You can just do things.