Stephanie Nunez is a research technician at the University of California, Berkeley. Within the RIPE project, Stephanie’s work focuses on Relaxing Photoprotection, specifically, studying and improving photosynthetic efficiency by investigating the mechanisms and regulatory dynamics of non-photochemical quenching (NPQ) in rice. Her contributions to the project include characterizing NPQ phenotypes and biochemical profiles of OsVDE and OsZEP noncoding sequence alleles generated via CRISPR-Cas9 multiplexed editing in the Niyogi Lab. Stepanie earned her bachelor's degree in biochemistry at the University of Texas, Austin. She is also a recipient of Special Departmental Honors, American Chemical Society Scholar, and Ronald E. McNair Scholar.