Our FounderSean was born in Pasadena, California to Deborah Anita Forte’ and Gregory Juyan Ganther on February 7th, 1990, where he was raised until the age of 7. Sean lived between Pasadena and the city of Beverly Hills until he moved to the Inland Empire in May of 2003 and attended Golden Valley Middle School his 8th grade year.
He then moved on to attend Cajon High School as an MYP/I.B. student. Sean was very active on campus participating in marching band as drum major, concert band, drumline, ASB and black student union. By his junior year, he auditioned for the Riverside City College (RCC) front ensemble and successfully integrated into the marching band program. Graduating in 2008, Sean went on to pursue his AA in music from RCC and developed himself as a percussionists performing with RCC’s winter drumline, Pulse Percussion and the DCI Blue Devils. With the culmination of introspection and life experiences, he decided to shift his academic trajectory towards science. In the spring of 2012, Sean transferred to California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB) as a Biochemistry major. There, he was able to start multiple pre-health and STEM related conferences, was appointed Biology Club President for two consecutive years and thrived academically graduating with honors Sean Graduated from CSUSB Fall 2015 with his B.A in Biology, minoring in Chemistry. He currently works as an Admission Counselor and Student Recruiter. Switching his focus to Dentistry, Sean was recently accepted into a very competitive program at The University of California, San Francisco where he will obtain his Doctor of Dental Surgery Degree in line with a doctoral degree (Ph.D) in regenerative stem cell biology in the Oral and Craniofacial Sciences Department. He hopes to one day find the means to regrow and replace missing or extracted adult teeth from a patient’s own tissues. |
Sean Ganther During his time as Lambda Sigma Biology Club’s President, Sean wanted to ensure that students were receiving pertinent information at the times they needed it in order to support his peers and colleagues in their career choices. He noticed that the pre-med culture was dominant among STEM based students and simply wanted to broaden horizons in terms of the possibilities within research, graduate school, and the plentiful options available with bachelors and master degree programs. This sparked the idea of creating an event that would hopefully manifest into a large scale conference geared towards STEM students, The Mad Scientist Expo. The Mad Scientist Expo would not only serve students at CSUSB but eventually all of Southern California.
Sean founded the Mad Scientist Expo in 2014. He envisioned a conference where students will leave motivated by the culmination of keynote speakers, plethora of workshops, administrative panels, live demos, a tabling fair, and an area where researchers are allowed to share ideas, network and develop friendships with people who share a lot of commonalities. He says, “It would be very satisfying and surreal to come back and speak at the event he started as a keynote address. I truly care about my fellow Yotes and am always excited to see the STEM community grow”. Sean continues to support the executive committee and hopes that one day, his small event will translate into a beacon of change that supports and facilitates the development of the futures next scientific and technological generations to come. |