Lydia Andreyevna Krasilnikova is a PhD candidate in Harvard’s department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. She works on pathogen identification and characterization through metagenomic and amplicon sequencing, which she uses to study undercharacterized or novel viral species, interactions between co-occurring infections, and disease outbreaks, especially among vulnerable and underserved populations. Broadly, she is interested in disease surveillance, human and disease evolution and migration, and personal genomics.
Lydia graduated with a bachelor’s degree and an MEng from MIT, where she majored in computer science and molecular biology and math and minored in writing. Her MEng thesis work focused on co-detected infections during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.
Outside of research, Lydia works on visual and written communication about math, science, and scientist culture. She has written for MIT Admissions and MIT Technology Review and has illustrated MIT outreach publications. You can follow her work at lakrasilnikova.home.blog.