{"id":13851,"date":"2016-05-24T11:53:09","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T16:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/college.unc.edu\/?p=13851"},"modified":"2024-07-02T16:28:28","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T16:28:28","slug":"kriti-sharma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/?p=13851","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with microbiome researcher Kriti Sharma"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Kriti
Kriti Sharma<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Kriti Sharma is a PhD candidate in biology in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences working in the Shank Lab<\/a>. Her research focuses on understanding the microorganisms in soil that are quietly working to make life above ground possible. As a UNC<\/span> microbiome researcher, she recently represented the university at the White House\u2019s National Microbiome Initiative\u00a0launch.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When you were a little girl, what was your response to this question: \u201cWhat do you want to be when you grow\u00a0up?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n
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From first grade through my undergrad years, the order went something like this: a naturalist, a poet, an environmentalist, a journalist, an international development officer working to end hunger, a philosopher, a nonprofit worker, an author, a member of a worker-owned collective, and a monk.<\/p>\n

What made you want to be a\u00a0scientist?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Really good writing \u2013 poetry, philosophy, and nature-writing specifically.\u00a0 After graduating from UNC<\/span> as an undergrad, I bought a $25 library card to be able to continue to access the library.\u00a0 I read lots of books on my long bus commute to and from my job at the EPA<\/span> in RTP<\/span>.\u00a0 By reading a lot of thoughtful and poetic writers, I found myself more and more astonished by my own aliveness.\u00a0 Essayist Annie Dillard wrote that it is \u201cone of the few questions worth asking, to wit, What in the Sam Hill is going on here?\u201d\u00a0 I thought, \u201cYeah, seriously \u2013 here we all are, alive!\u00a0 What in the Sam Hill is going on here?\u201d\u00a0 So I applied to grad school in biology based on a gut feeling, an intuition that I would learn something important about life and aliveness there.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t\u00a0wrong.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s the funniest part of your\u00a0research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My research involves creating new methods for visualizing how soil bacteria live in the fascinating, maze-like structure of soil.\u00a0 \u201cCreating new methods\u201d includes a lot of prototyping and trial-and-error, which basically means that it\u2019s always arts-and-crafts-hour at my lab bench.\u00a0 It often feels absurd: autoclaving pipecleaners to clean out bacterial growth chambers, figuring out if rubber cement or school glue works better to stick chambers to a microscope slide, and using Shrinky Dinks to make molds.\u00a0 I look at the assortment of craft supplies on my lab bench and wonder, am I working towards a PhD, or still trying to pass\u00a0kindergarten?<\/p>\n

What advice would you give to up and coming female researchers in your\u00a0field?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surround yourself with good people \u2013 wise, kind, grounded people, who are genuine with you, and relate with you \u2013 that\u2019s more important than whatever is written on your\u00a0CV<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Story by UNC Research, as part of its Women in Science Wednesday feature.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kriti Sharma is a PhD candidate in biology in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences working in the Shank Lab. Her research focuses on understanding the microorganisms in soil that are quietly working to make life above ground possible. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":13852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-natural-sciences-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13851"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47754,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13851\/revisions\/47754"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collegearchive.unc.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}