Natasha Dean

Natasha Dean is a Lecturer at La Sierra University participating in the HHMI Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science (SEA-PHAGES) program. She serves as Primary Instructor for Biol 115L (In situ phage discovery/microbiology) and Additional Instructor for Bio 114L (In silico phage genomics/bioinformatics) during the 2024-2025 academic year, teaching 18 undergraduate students per course with emphasis on freshmen and sophomores.

Her research spans critical areas of biological science:

• Genomics
• Evolutionary Science
• Microbiology
• Bioinformatics

Dean's experimental work utilizes bacterial hosts Microbacterium foliorum and Microbacterium paraoxydans for phage isolation and genomic analysis. Each course involves 6 weekly hours of laboratory instruction across two sessions, focusing on both computational genomics and hands-on microbiological techniques within the nationwide SEA-PHAGES consortium framework.