Senior Research Associate and Lab Manager
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Dr. Laura BerkowitzOur extraordinary lab manager and Senior Research Associate, “Dr. Laura” is the glue that holds The Shack together. Following undergraduate work at Bucknell University and receipt of her doctorate in molecular biology at the prestigious Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and SUNY Stony Brook, Laura entered the elegant field of C. elegans research as a postdoc with National Academy of Sciences Member, Dr. Susan Strome, then at Indiana University, and continued on to be a professor at The University of Tulsa, before worming her way to the Shack to share in our interests in using worms to study neurological disorders. As long as Laura, a SciFi-a-holic and life-long Trekker, is on the case, we know The Shack will certainly “live long and prosper”!
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Research Technician
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Dr. Karolina Willicott
The most recent Ph.D. graduate of The Worm Shack (August 2024), Dr. Karolina is currently gainfully employed as a full-time research technician whilst awaiting her beloved hubby, Corey Willicott, finishes up his own doctorate. Her amazing journey in life took her from an early childhood in the Ukraine, to Brooklyn, then beautiful Virginia (B.S., Biology. Longwood University), next to Nebraska (M.S., Biology, University of Nebraska at Kearney; mentor: Dr. Paul Twigg), and finally to the promised land of her Ph.D. in Tuscaloosa! Roll nucleotide! Currently, funded by an NIH grant to investigate a rare neurological disorder termed Salla Disease, Dr. K. is actually extending findings on a gene that she initially uncovered in experiments when she originally joined the Shack! We remain so fortunate to have our first Dr. Willicott (and her yummy piroshki!) with us just a little longer.
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