PhD Student
Pronouns: she/her
Education
BS, Biotechnology,
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Bio
Crystal is broadly interested in studying the effects of environmental change on human health. She completed her undergraduate degree in Biotechnology at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. There she studied the effects of bacterial co-infection between pathogenetic and endosymbiotic bacteria found in deer ticks. Post graduation she went on to work as a lab technician at Cornell University, while there she studied the combinatorial effects of various PFAS chemicals on natural killer cell function and proliferation.
As a PhD student at Bren, she plans to explore how environmental and land use change has influenced vector-borne disease. In particular she is interested in investigating the impacts of drought on relative tick abundance and tick-borne disease pathogens across various regions in California.
Year Admitted
2024
Faculty Advisor
Andy MacDonald