Kelly Ireland

Master's Student 2018-2020

Kelly identified and characterized PAH degrading microbes within the threespine stickleback gut microbiota and how they may help the fish respond to crude oil exposure. As an undergraduate, Kelly worked on developing qRT-PCR assays for innate and adaptive immune genes in stickleback. Kelly earned an Undergraduate Research Scholarship through the UAA Honors College, a Molly Ahlgren scholarship through the American Fisheries Society, and a Summer 2017 Alaska INBRE Undergraduate Research Assistantship (URA). She graduated with a double major in biology and journalism, with honors in each department, academic honors, and leadership honors from the University of Alaska Anchorage. She was funded by the Arctic Domain Awareness Center. She successfully defended her Master’s thesis May 2020 and is now a PhD student in Dr. Brandon Brigg’s lab at the University of Alaska Anchorage.