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Michaela Gazdik Stofer, Ph.D., is a molecular microbiologist and educator who has focused her career engaging undergraduate students in the excitement of microbiology. Gazdik Stofer has taught a variety of courses including microbiology, emerging infectious diseases, microbial pathogenesis and general biology. Her research interests focus on understanding the role of cAMP in Mycobacterium tuberculosis pathogenesis, and she engages a team of undergraduate students using non-pathogenic mycobacteria to investigate her research questions.

Gazdik Stofer earned her B.S. in biotechnology from Rutgers University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical sciences from SUNY Albany, where she was also a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Disease Fellow. Gazdik Stofer has held academic faculty positions at 2 primarily undergraduate institutions. The first from 2007-2014 at Ferrum College, a small liberal arts institution, and the second from 2016-2023 at Utah Valley University (UVU), a large public undergraduate-focused university. At UVU she held the position of associate professor and served as department chair of the 45-member biology department for 3 years. During her time at UVU she was awarded the College of Science Faculty Excellence Award, Office of Teaching and Learning Flexible Teaching Award and most recently the Provost Excellence Award.

Gazdik Stofer is interested in equity in science education. She has engaged in a variety of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) workshops and is a co-PI on a National Science Foundation (NSF) S-STEM grant to improve educational outcomes of underrepresented biology students through mentored research experiences. Outside of her academic positions, she has also worked in in the Division of Epidemiology and Infectious Disease at Intermountain Healthcare, using molecular strain typing to better understand hospital-acquired infections.