Maria Sharakhova has joined the Department of Entomology in Virginia Tech's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

She is one of eight new faculty members recently hired in the college. New positions are being identified to bring new talent to its focus areas, including food and health, infectious disease, biodesign and processing, and agricultural profitability and environmental sustainability. The new faculty members are distributed across teaching, research, and Extension.

Sharakhova investigates vector-borne illnesses and is primarily involved in developing cytogenetic tools for studying mosquitoes that transmit yellow fever, Dengue fever, West Nile encephalitis, and malaria. She has mapped and characterized the genome organization in the yellow fever vector Aedes aegypti, as well as analyzed the evolution of chromosomes in malaria mosquitoes.

She received her master's degree in biology from Tomsk State University and her Ph.D. in genetics from the Institute of Cytology and Genetics.

Among Sharakhova's honors are the Individual Award from the International Science Foundation, co-authorship on a paper recommended by the Faculty 1000, and corresponding authorship on a publication highlighted in Biome.

 

 

Written by Amy Loeffler

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