Sam Schaffner
Sam grew up in St. Louis, MO. She attended Kenyon College in the small town of Gambier, OH where she earned her B.A. in Molecular Biology and studied bacterial multidrug efflux pumps while using E. coli as a model for the gut microbiome. Sam was also fortunate to do a summer research internship at Stowers Institute for Medical Research in Kansas City, MO where she mated wild isolates of the yeast S. pombe in order to better understand the spread of meiotic drivers in a population. Her love of genetics has brought her to the Patel lab where she is excited to learn more about mitochondrial genetics while utilizing C. elegans as a model organism. When Sam is not in the lab she can be found fostering cats or exploring the art and music of Nashville.