
Cheryl Van Buskirk
Professor
Brief Biography
I grew up in Calgary, Canada and received my Bachelor's degree in Biochemistry from the University of Calgary in 1993. I fell in love with genetics thanks to a great teacher, and I've been doing genetics ever since. I went to Princeton to study developmental genetics in Drosophila under Trudi Schupbach, then to Caltech to study behavioral genetics in C. elegans under Paul Sternberg. Here at CSUN I aim to pay forward the inspiration given to me by my professors and mentors along the way. I regularly teach non-majors biology (BIOL100), where I strive to make the information as accessible and entertaining as possible, even if that means being silly. Each fall I teach an upper-division lab course (BIOL447/L) that is also known as FIRE! (Full Immersion Research Experience) - a crash course in becoming a scientist. I also teach BIOL360 Genetics as well as graduate seminars. In my research lab we are trying to find out why, at a cellular level, we need to sleep. Sleep appears to have arisen long ago in animal evolution, so we can use a simple model organism (C. elegans, a microscopic worm) to probe sleep function in a relevant way. If you are an undergraduate student looking for an inclusive, authentic research experience, check out FIRE lab and/or reach out to me, and if you are thinking of the master's degree program in biology, shoot me an email and come check out our research lab!
Education
- Ph.D. 2000, Princeton University
- B.S 1993, University of Calgary
Research
Research Interest data is currently not available.
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