Katya Polovina, B.S.  joined the Nijagal Lab at the onset of its launch in 2017. Since then, she has contributed to experimental design and execution and has been instrumental in protocol optimization, in vivo techniques and sample processing. Formerly, Katya was employed by the Dept of Microbiology and Immunology at UCSF where she managed a microbiology laboratory and taught diagnostic microbiology lab for the school of dentistry. Katya completed her B.S. in Microbiology from SJSU.