Dr. Kat Milligan-Myhre is an Inupiaq runner, mother, and scientist. Raised in a remote community above the Arctic Circle that was 80% Alaskan Native, she spent over 20 years earning a Western science education in predominantly white Universities in the Lower ’48 before returning to Alaska. She earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Medical Microbiology and Immunology and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the first Alaskan Native to earn a PhD in Microbiology, and one of fewer than ten Alaskan Natives with Biology-related PhDs. She is now an Assistant Professor in Biological Sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage.
While in school, she was struck by the scarcity of females and minorities in science. As a result, she is committed to making the academic research field a welcoming environment for women and minorities. She teaches microbiology for programs that encourage Alaskan youth to pursue STEM and medical degrees, including the Alaskan Native Science and Engineering Program summer academy and the Della Keats Health Science Summer Program. She helped launch and organize the annual UAA STEM Day and UAA STEM EXPO, which has introduced over 2000 K-12 students and their families to STEM related research fields using hands-on activities that are created and implemented by over 40 researchers in Anchorage, including UAA students and professors.
Dr. Kat (as she is known by her students) has over 20 years of hands-on microbiology experience. As an undergraduate and as a lab technician for Dr. Richard Proctor, she identified the environmental and genetic stimulators of toxin production in Staphylococcus aureus. Her PhD thesis with Dr. Laura Knoll focused on the genes necessary for the obligate intracellular parasite Toxoplasma gondii to migrate to and encyst in brain tissues. She was co-mentored during her postdoc by Drs. Karen Guillemin and William Cresko at the University of Oregon. During her postdoc, Dr. Kat developed gnotobiotic protocols for the evolution model organism threespine stickleback fish, identified gene by environment interactions in immune stimulation in juvenile fish raised in gnotobiotic conditions, and characterized immune development in gnotobiotic zebrafish. Her current research focuses on determining the extent that host genes control host-microbe interactions, with the goal of identifying mechanisms that underlie inflammatory diseases. Her lab has isolated and characterized over a hundred microbes from stickleback guts and their natural environments, including anaerobic microbes.
Her honors include funding from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, being a featured speaker at the National SACNAS meeting in 2018, and a blanketing ceremony from the University of Oregon Native American community.