Graduate Research Assistant

Worked as a Graduate Research Assistant in Animal Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, focusing on microbiome, metagenomics, and bioinformatics research.

Responsibilities and experience included:

• Processing microbiome and metagenomic sequencing data using High-Performance Computing (HPC) clusters
• Performing genome assembly, binning, taxonomic annotation, and functional analysis of metagenomic datasets
• Developing and running bioinformatics pipelines for metagenomics and microbial community analysis
• Conducting 16S rRNA amplicon analysis using DADA2 and downstream microbiome analysis workflows
• Using bioinformatics tools including MetaBAT2, GTDB-Tk, DRAM, Kraken2, Bowtie2, CheckM2, and MEGAHIT more.
• Writing SLURM batch scripts for large-scale computational analysis and workflow automation
• Performing wet lab techniques including DNA extraction, PCR amplification, library preparation, and sequencing sample preparation
• Assisting with microbial culturing, laboratory sample handling, and molecular biology experiments
• Supporting collaborative microbiome and animal health research projects