BioBus + Brotherhood Sister Sol
PROJECTS 2025
COMPOSTourri
finalist project
Peter Bagayoko, Bryan Chocho, Hassan Horne, Amy Cordova, Jay Motolinia, Naomi "Finny" Cepeda, Zayneb Saad, Javier Paulino, Angel Gomez
COMPOSTourri is a compost supplement designed to improve community garden compost by reducing unpleasant odors and repelling pests. Made from a biopolymer infused with essential oils and shaped into fun forms, it can be added to compost piles along with food scraps. Developed in response to compost smell concerns while valuing the garden’s strong sense of community, COMPOSTourri offers a simple, caring way for community members to support the health of the garden and its workers, fostering connection through sustainable and thoughtful composting practices.
Instructors 2025
Alison Dell, BioBus Lead Community Scientist, is a molecular biologist and artist. Dell received her Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania, where she now teaches in the department of Fine Art and Design. Dell is co-founder of Art in the Lab, an ongoing series bringing scientists and artists together for events that mix drawing and laboratory work.
Maia Yoshida graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, where she majored in Cellular & Molecular Biology. She then spent two years at the Lim Lab at the University of California, San Francisco, studying immune cell cytokine signaling networks and their applications for engineering cell therapies that target cancers. She also headed the lab's outreach efforts, developing programs in collaboration with the Exploratorium and the California College of the Arts and became excited about science education that integrates the arts. This led her to pursue a M.A. in STEM Education at King's College London as a Thouron Scholar. There, she conducted original research with the Institute of Imagination on children’s perceptions of the relationship between maker education and inquiry-based science learning and also interned with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to develop a program focused on inspiring and supporting youth plant science interests through design-based approaches.