Affiliation: Marquette University

Dr. Sukanya Lodh is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She worked as a Scientist at UW-Madison School of Medicine in the division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism. She carried out post-doctoral research at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Nutrition. Dr. Lodh received her PhD from the University of Vermont Department of Biology, and her Master’s degree from University of Calcutta, India. Her research interests were focused on investigating the role of ciliopathy proteins in diabetes, obesity, and the Notch signaling pathway, and characterizing the functional role of a novel transcription factor, TCF19, in maintaining healthy pancreatic ß-cell mass. She gained her interests in primary cilium and ciliopathies from when she started working as a PhD candidate in Dr. Van Houten’s Lab at UVM, where her project was focused on determining the association of two proteins, PWA and PWB, with ciliary voltage gated Ca2+ channel in the ciliate organism paramecium. Her postdoctoral projects had built upon her doctoral training in ciliary biology and expanded it to focus on a specific ciliopathy-related phenotype, β-cell development, and regeneration. She pursued her interest in characterizing novel factors that maintain a functional ß-cell mass at UW-Madison.