Skylar Bird

Skylar Bird is a 2022-2026 Self Graduate Fellow pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Kansas Medical Center. Bird graduated from the University of California, San Diego in June 2021 with a B.S. in Biochemistry and Cellular Biology. During her undergraduate studies, she completed two major research projects. The first investigated the immune response and fungal elicitation of antibiotics by plants, specifically Zea mays. The second project focused on the effect of citrullination, a post-translational modification, of a major blood coagulation protein, fibrinogen. This project aimed to understand how citrullination of fibrinogen affects blood clot structure and function. Bird is set to begin her first year of her Ph.D., so she is yet to pick a topic of study for her doctorate. She has a great interest in both the biochemistry and molecular and integrative physiology department. She aims to study protein engineering to understand how it can transform personalized medicine.

Mentor: Michele T. Pritchard, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Pharmacology, Toxicology & Therapeutics.