olga minkina

Studied transgenerational inheritance in C. elegans. Discovered a novel signal that initiates small RNA-mediated heritable epigenetic silencing in the germline and chromatin-mediated heritable epigenetic silencing in the soma. Implemented many experimental techniques in these studies, including genetics, RNAi, micro-injection, transgene analysis, qRT-PCR, RNA sequencing and small RNA sequencing. Supervised and mentored two undergraduate students and one graduate rotation student who mapped mutations that disrupted systemic RNA transport in C. elegans. Published results in Molecular Cell.

Held weekly office hours and led tutoring groups to help students with practice problems and lecture material. Graded and proctored exams for class of 350 students.

Tutored individual students and groups of 3-8 students weekly. Helped students with problem sets, lecture material and exam preparation. Held additional tutoring sessions prior to exams.

Held weekly office hours to help students with problem sets and lecture material. Graded and proctored exams for class of 370 students. Contributed exam questions on the subject of genetics.

Studied dietary obesity in Dr. James Cheverud’s laboratory for honors work. Studied genetics underlying variance in response to high fat diet in a mouse model. Statistically analyzed variance in liver fat percent, calculated with EchoMRI. Identified quantitative trait loci for liver fat percent and examined candidate genes. Published results in G3.

Studied pathways regulating adaxial-abaxial leaf polarity in Dr. Marja Timmermans’ plant development laboratory.

Studied the molecular mechanisms that direct neuronal migration and neurite organization in the Drosophila optic lobe.

Leveraged Flask to develop BiblioPal, a website to predict library usage given operational choices (ominkina.com). Aggregated, cleaned, and feature engineered yearly data from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences in Python. Identified how resources, staffing and spending choices impact library usage with random forest model.

* Fall 2011: Molecular Biology * Taught weekly discussion section and lab course. Held weekly office hours. Graded problem sets and exams and contributed to exam questions. * Spring 2013: Human Developmental and Regenerative Biology * Taught weekly discussion section. Held weekly office hours. Graded problem sets and exams and wrote problem set and exam questions.

A 10-week course taught through the Harvard Business School to learn fundamental concepts in business and to be able to effectively apply these concepts to a variety of career paths.