The Doctoral Program in Microbiology provides advanced training and education for students with the desire and ability to thrive in a stimulating, research-oriented graduate program leading to careers in science in the academic, governmental, or private sectors.
Elena Wall is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the lab of Dr. Catherine Lozupone. The Lozupone lab is interested in understanding microbial products and interactions in the host gastrointestinal system so that they can harness those processes to improve human health. Elena’s research is focused on trying to understand mechanisms that drive ecological succession of the gut microbiome after a disturbance event (like antibiotic usage). She has been studying this by characterizing specific bacteria that are resilient to oxidative stress and colonize infant and disturbed microbiomes.
Elena found her love of the microbial world while she was a research assistant in a lab in Oregon. Since starting graduate school, she has given poster presentations at the Front Range Microbiome Symposium and the 2023 MPID symposium, and she was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRFP). She feels she is rewarded daily by getting to do “really cool” science and share her enthusiasm with other microbe admirers.
Outside of the lab, Elena plays the best (and most outrageous…) unicorn themed deck MTG. She dabbles in poetry and graphic art on her own, and goes rockhounding and chases eclipses with her partner and her dogs. Elena believes it’s important to remember that if you knew everything already, you wouldn’t need to be in graduate school. “Try not to get too upset if you don’t have all the answers to every question you’re asked.”
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As a member of the Coalition for Next Generation Life Science, the Graduate School provides detailed statistics from Biomedical Science programs on: Admissions and matriculation data of PhD students, Average time-to-degree and completion data for PhD programs, and Demographics of PhD students by gender, underrepresented minority status, and citizenship status.
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