Shakhnozakhon (Shae) Tillaboeva is a research technician at the Crop Transformation Facility (CTF) at the University of Illinois. For the RIPE project, Shae will be improving photosynthesis to increase crop yields by working on delivering complex genetic constructs into soybean. Shae earned her bachelor's degree in agronomy at Tashkent State Agrarian University in Uzbekistan. She later went on to earn her master's degree in plant genetic engineering at Nigde Omer Halisdemir University. Shae's research has been published on ScienceDirect and the Journal of Cotton Research.