Sahana Kuthyar

I am a third year PhD candidate in Biological Sciences, and I am broadly interested in understanding how environmental factors shape animal health. I completed a B.S. and M.S. in Environmental Science at Emory University, where I studied the zoonotic transmission of Giardia intestinalis at a human-wildlife interface in northern Argentina. More recently, I managed a microbiome lab at Northwestern University where I contributed to various projects that assessed the impact of the environment on host biology. One of my projects examined how habitat degradation and pathogen infection shaped the howler monkey gut microbiome. My PhD dissertation research builds off my interest on the interactions between the environment, infection, and the gut microbiome as I focus on how the ecological and evolutionary changes stemming from domestication have shaped the pig gut microbiome and its interactions with pig immunity. During my time in the program, I hope to engage with the diverse community of present and past scholars. I'm looking forward to this great learning opportunity, and I'm thankful for the ARCS fellowship that has made it possible.