Stephanie Ragland, PhD

Stephanie earned her bachelor’s in biology from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) in 2009. For her postbaccalaureate work in Dr. Jason Carlyon’s lab at VCU, Stephanie studied how the obligate intracellular bacterium Anaplasma phagocytophilum adheres to and invades into neutrophils. During her PhD in Dr. Alison Criss’ lab at the University of Virginia, Stephanie studied how the obligate human pathogen Neisseria gonorrhoeae evades killing by components of the innate immune system. Stephanie described several N. gonorrhoeae defense mechanisms that thwart killing by the antimicrobial protein lysozyme. For her postdoctoral work, Stephanie joined Jon Kagan’s lab at Harvard University to expand beyond the field of bacterial pathogenesis into the field of mammalian innate immunity. Stephanie identified a novel phagosome-transporter-sensor axis that enables broad innate detection of diverse bacteria in macrophages. Stephanie’s background in the fields of microbiology and immunology enable a rich research program that bridges the two fields with creative applications in vaccine and cancer immunotherapeutic research.