• BS/MS in Materials Chemistry, Moscow State University, Russia
• PhD in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Molecular Biology, Pennsylvania State University, PA
• PostDoc, Harvard University, MA
• Duke K12 Scholar, Duke University, NC

Trained as a chemist in my BS/MS studies, I came to biological research to study how bacteria adapt to their changing environments and interact within microbial niches. During my PhD studies, I analyzed molecular mechanism of transcription regulation upon stress response in bacteria. In my first postdoctoral training I worked on functional analyses of the bacterial transport mechanisms, crucial for bacterial adaptation, such as protein secretion and DNA transport. These projects utilized the power of bacterial genetics, structural biology and biochemistry. After that I proceeded with my second postdoctoral and Duke KURe training where I gained expertise in working with clinical drug-resistant pathogens and commensal microbiome communities, next generation sequencing and computational approaches. 

For the last couple of years, I analyzed potential for lateral spread of antibiotic resistance genes in clinical isolates of multidrug-resistant urinary pathogenic and commensal species. This focused my interests on trying to understand the mechanisms of spread of drug-resistance genes in microbial communities and this topic became the main focus of our team at UAH.