Dr. Karla Stucker is a teacher, veterinarian, and virologist. She studied cellular and molecular biology as an undergraduate at Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She then joined the inaugural class for Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine’s combined DVM/PhD program. During her combined degree training, Karla pursued a mixed small and large animal pathway during her clinical rotations, completed a dissertation on the evolution of canine parvovirus, and developed her pedagogical skills as a future faculty fellow. After earning her veterinary degree, Karla worked part time for Shelter Outreach Services in Ithaca, New York, providing spay/neuter surgeries and infection control support for regional animal shelters. After earning her PhD, Karla completed her postdoctoral studies at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, where she continued studying viral evolution and host switching, as well as genomics, bioinformatics, and microbiome sciences.

Driven in part by the need to get students interested earlier in biomedical and health sciences and her love for teaching, Karla chose to move from higher education to secondary school education. She was a science teacher and dorm parent at George School, a Quaker boarding and day high school in Newtown, Pennsylvania, for five years before joining the Waterford School faculty in Sandy, Utah, where she currently teaches science to middle and high school students. Karla also works as a part time small animal veterinarian at Salt Lake Veterinary Service in Taylorsville, Utah.

In addition to teaching and practicing veterinary medicine, Karla enjoys spending time with her dogs, Fig and Fern, Nordic skiing, hiking, reading, and solving puzzles. She is excited to work with the participants and facilitators of the 2023 Bioinformatics Workshop!