Sophia Kottke

I am a PhD student in the Evolutionary Anthropology program at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, affiliated with the Center for Evolution and Medicine and Institute of Human Origins. I am co-advised by Dr. Joan Silk and Dr. India Schneider-Crease. My research takes an interdisciplinary approach to understanding bacteriophage dynamics in the gelada monkey gut microbiome. This work focuses on the phageome -- the collection of bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria -- and how it develops, persists, and varies across individuals and life stages. More broadly, my graduate research examines how development, host relatedness, bacterial community structure, bacteria-phage interactions, and life-history stressors shape gut microbial variation and its potential links to later-life health outcomes. To do this, I use longitudinal fecal microbiome and virome sequencing data analyzed with computational and bioinformatic approaches.

Originally from Austin, Texas, I earned my BS in Biology and Anthropology from Texas State University. During my time there, I worked with Dr. Jill Pruetz to study the impact of adult female presence on feeding associated behaviors within subgroups of a spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi) community at the Camaquiri Conservation Initiative in Limón, Costa Rica. Additionally, I worked in Dr. Hong-Gu Kang's Lab for 2.5 years, where I helped to better characterize the activity patterns of a small RNA molecule, known as a tRNA-derived fragment, after pathogen exposure in Arabidopsis thaliana.

Worms Gone Wild Lab and find us on socials @wildwormslab | Learn more about geladas: Simien Mountains Gelada Research Project | Connect with me on LinkedIn