Shawna Carlyn Oswald Reed

Shawna Reed is an Assistant Professor and currently teaches BMS 370 (General Microbiology).

She loves to use active learning and conceptual frameworks to teach students about the fascinating world of microbes. As a scientist, she is passionate about uncovering the molecular interactions between host cells and intracellular bacteria. She has studied primate parasites (undergraduate), papillomavirus genome tethering (post-baccalaureate at NIH), Rickettsia and Listeria actin-based intracellular motility (PhD research at UC Berkeley) and Coxiella genetics and host interactions (Post-doc at Yale).

In her laboratory, she looks forward to creating research projects for undergraduates curious about intracellular pathogens, bacterial genetics, interactions with host immune sensing pathways, and how individual bacterial effector proteins might contribute to virulence by hijacking host cell functions. Specifically, she hopes to explore the function of secreted bacterial effectors, the sensing of Coxiella infection by Drosophila (fruit fly) immune pathways, and bio-engineer Coxiella for future research.

Her goal is to mentor students as independent scientists who present their work at regional or national conferences as well as become authors on published research papers.