The goal of Sasha’s research is to inform and reduce environmental toxicities. Projects have included building an electrochemical fuel cell, measuring toxicity of permalloy disks, assembling a nanoscale photocatalyst, site-directed mutagenesis of Toluene ortho-xylene monooxygenase, climate change effects on alpine streams, and acid mine drainage effects on microbial communities. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology at Pomona College, Sasha narrowed her research focus to anthropogenic impacts on the environment at a molecular level in aquatic and atmospheric environments. Sasha is also a member of the Free Radicals collective, an activist collective dedicated to creating a more socially just, equitable, and accountable science.
In addition to her professional titles, Sasha is solar engineer, commercially-licensed driver, extremophile lover, and certified best friend. When brain space isn’t dedicated to queering gender performativity, transnationalism, and all things molecular biology related, Sasha loves frolicking in rural Russian fields, visiting museums in the snowy Eastern Sierra, and skating down the street to play pick-up soccer in Chicago’s Jackson park. Catch Sasha doing more Baba Yaga witchcraft on the gram @sashawasha23!
Websites with Additional Bios
The image of Sasha with moss as a mustache was taken on Multnomah, Molalas, Kalapuyans, Chinookan, Clackamas Shinookan, Wascos, Klickitat, Kittitas, Yakama, Wanapum, Palus, Lower Snake, Walla Walla, Umatilla, Tenino, Northern Paiute and many tribes’ ancestral, present, and future lands.
Aleksandra Karapetrova 