I'm Andrea Kunkle and this site has got all sorts of stuff about me, including school, work, family, and friends. I'm a sophomore at the University of Washington and I'll be declaring as a Biology Major soon. I'm also pursuing a minor in Oceanography, and then heading off into the unknown (how exciting!). Currently, I work in the Marine Molecular Biotechnology Lab, in the lab of Gabrielle Rocap. My work consists of two projects. My main focus is assisting the Stramenopile Chloroplast Genome Project (see above link). I sequence the 18srRNA gene of all the stramenopiles involved in the project to determine that they are the organism we think they are (or if they aren't, what they REALLY are). It's a pretty long process that occupied me all summer and continues into the school year as new organisms are chosen for the project and their DNA is extracted. My other involvement is with the Hood Canal Dissolved Oxygen Program. I assist with sampling, titration of dissolved oxygen samples, and data entry, when extra help is needed. Sampling occurs roughly monthly, so this is an ongoing but sporadic project.

P.S. I love my dad tons and I would have put a picture of him in the picture gallery at left, except I don't have one on my computer and he hasn't sent one to me. Hi dad, I know that was the first thing you noticed...