Lynnicia Massenburg was a research assistant at the University of Illinois. Lynn has a particular interest in photosynthetic efficiency, oil production, and cellulosic breakdown. With the RIPE Project, she focused on increasing the photosynthetic efficiency of cassava, a major food security crop in Africa. She targeted key photosynthesis-related enzymes and foreign enzymes to optimize cassava photosynthesis. Lynn interned at research institutions all across the U.S. after she received her bachelor’s degree in biotechnology from Rutgers University. She is also the recipient of multiple fellowships, including the National Science Foundation GRFP Fellowship. Her work has been published in Plant Science and the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology.