Isaiah Pabuayon is a postdoctoral research associate at Louisiana State University. His work will explore the effects of inserting different algal carbon concentrating mechanisms (CCM) components into plants to see if and how they will improve photosynthetic efficiency. For the RIPE project, Isaiah hoped to contribute to discovering physiological changes in plants from the introduction of algal CCM components. Isaiah earned his bachelor's degree in biology-genetics from the University of the Philippines - Los Baños. He later went on to earn his doctorate degree in plant and soil science from Texas Tech University before doing his postdoc there as well. Isaiah received the George Tereshkovich PSS Outstanding Doctoral Student Award in 2021. His work has been published in Frontiers in Plant Science, Rice, and Frontiers in Genetics.