Khandra Sears

Graduate School Senator
University of Maryland, Baltimore
2008 - 2009

E-mail: ksear001@umaryland.edu

Biography:  I was born and grew up on the island of New Providence, The Bahamas.  After high school I attended the Cave Hill, Barbados Campus of the University of the West Indies where I earned a B.Sc. in Microbiology.  The projects I did in my final year there gave me a passion for research but I wasn’t sure graduate school was for me.  I took a year off to work with Dr. Gregory Carey, then at the American Red Cross Holland Labs in Rockville, MD, on delineating the mechanism of action for manumycin, an antibiotic with anti-cancer properties, in B-cell lymphomas.  I made up my mind to go to graduate school and I am currently a 5^th year student in the GPILS program in Microbiology and Immunology.  I work in the lab of Dr. Abdu Azad characterizing a family of cell surface proteins in Rickettsia typhi, the agent of murine typhus fever.  Although Baltimore is very different from my hometown Nassau, I enjoy being able to see some of my favorite Caribbean artists in concert and participating in the annual DC Caribbean Carnival.  My friends and I also love checking out the neighborhood festivals and the great restaurants the city has to offer.