Kristen A. Butela, Ph.D.
University of Pittsburgh
Kristen A. Butela, Ph.D., serves as a teaching associate professor and Co-Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, located in Pittsburgh, Pa. She currently teaches microbiology lecture and seminar courses and has designed and implemented curriculum for the HHMI Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomic and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program.
In addition to teaching the SEA-PHAGES course at the University of Pittsburgh and Seton Hill University, she previously served as the course director for the Phage Discovery Course Summer Training Institute (2018-19) and currently serves as a quality control peer reviewer for actinobacteriophage genome annotations completed by students and faculty in the SEA-PHAGES program.
Butela is also a member of the steering committee in the Biologists and Graph Interpretation (BioGraphI) Research Coordination Network, a group of faculty working to increase student persistence in biology through the creation of data interpretation activities that highlight the work of scientists from historically excluded groups. She earned a B.S. in biology from Seton Hill University in 2003 and a Ph.D. in molecular, cellular and developmental biology with research specialization in microbial genome evolution from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011.
In addition to teaching the SEA-PHAGES course at the University of Pittsburgh and Seton Hill University, she previously served as the course director for the Phage Discovery Course Summer Training Institute (2018-19) and currently serves as a quality control peer reviewer for actinobacteriophage genome annotations completed by students and faculty in the SEA-PHAGES program.
Butela is also a member of the steering committee in the Biologists and Graph Interpretation (BioGraphI) Research Coordination Network, a group of faculty working to increase student persistence in biology through the creation of data interpretation activities that highlight the work of scientists from historically excluded groups. She earned a B.S. in biology from Seton Hill University in 2003 and a Ph.D. in molecular, cellular and developmental biology with research specialization in microbial genome evolution from the University of Pittsburgh in 2011.