I am a Pathways Master’s student in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology. In my lab we study biofilm formation in E. coli. Biofilms are made of individual cells that stick to one another and form a complex structure that is difficult to break apart. These communities can be up to 1000x more…
Author: Chiamaka Ugochi Ukachukwu
Chiamaka Ukachukwu is a Nigerian-American born and raised in New Jersey. She recently defended her Master's thesis through the Pathways Program in the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor. Under the guidance of Dr. Matthew Chapman she studied regulation of biofilm formation in E. coli to better understand mechanisms of antibiotic resistance.
During her time at Michigan she served as Co-President of Females Excelling More in Math Engineering and the Sciences (FEMMES), a group focused on recruiting young girls from underrepresented and underserved communities into STEM fields. She also served on the African Studies Center executive board as a student liason to foster research collaborations between the University of Michigan and Africa. She is passionate about diversifying STEM fields and using science to benefit society. In her spare time she likes to dance and perform spoken word.
In the coming months she will be doing a 10 month research project at the de Duve Institute in Brussels, Belgium as a Fulbright Scholar and Belgian American Educational Foundation research fellow. In the lab of Dr. Jean-Francois Collet, she will study protective stress responses in E. coli that are also linked to antibiotic resistance. Afterwards she will matriculate into the Ph.D Program in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor in Fall 2018.