Eliza Barkan

Graduate Rotation Student

Joined Spring 2019

I am a first-year Ph.D. student in the Molecular and Cellular Biology Program at the University of Washington. I received my Bachelor of Science degree from Bates College where I majored in Neuroscience and minored in Chemistry. I worked with Jason Castro, Ph.D. studying how opioids modulate synaptic activity in mouse accessory olfactory bulb. Prior to starting graduate school, I worked as a Research Associate at the Allen Institute for Brain Science for three years working on a project focused on characterizing the many complex cell types of mouse and human cortex using single cell RNA-sequencing. As a graduate student, I am interested in using computational methods to analyze genomic data to gain a better understanding of diseases.

In the Ha Lab, I am working on identifying structural rearrangement signatures in prostate cancer as well as validating new technologies and methods for whole genome sequencing of tumor genomes.

Outside of the lab, I enjoy cooking, hiking, backpacking, skiing and biking.