{"id":5996,"date":"2025-04-25T08:20:37","date_gmt":"2025-04-25T13:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/?p=5996"},"modified":"2025-04-25T08:20:37","modified_gmt":"2025-04-25T13:20:37","slug":"csb-spotlight-katherine-stefanski-sanders-lab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/2025\/04\/25\/csb-spotlight-katherine-stefanski-sanders-lab\/","title":{"rendered":"CSB Spotlight: Katherine Stefanski, Sanders Lab"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Katherine Stefanski, PhD, Sanders Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sanders Lab<\/a> Postdoc Katherine Stefanski’s<\/strong> lab motto might be “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Outside the lab she likes to wreak a bit of havoc in Smashville! That is, when it doesn’t get in the way of a good book.<\/p>\n

Meet Katherine …<\/p>\n

What is the focus of your research?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I study ordered lipid domains and their constituent proteins. I also study mechanisms of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.<\/em><\/p>\n

What tools\/techniques do you use?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Mammalian cell culture, fluorescence microscopy, image analysis and classic biophysical techniques.<\/em><\/p>\n

What was your path to this position?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have always wanted to become a professor and PI. Toward the end of my Ph.D. work, I had decided I wanted to stay in the general field of membrane protein biochemistry. I met Chuck and several members of the lab at a Gordon Conference and realized that Vanderbilt and the Sanders lab were ideal environments for my postdoctoral work.<\/em><\/p>\n

What is your favorite part of performing research within a lab?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Being creative and coming up with new ways to test my hypotheses. I love learning new techniques. Mentoring students is also one of my greatest joys as a scientist. <\/em><\/p>\n

What do you think is the key to a cohesive lab environment?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The relationships between lab members are crucial. Kindness, encouragement, and offering help before being asked go a long way \u2013 science is hard enough on its own! Equally important is having a well-organized and properly maintained lab space. This is key everyone\u2019s experiments being successful and reproducible.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

What are some fun activities you like to do outside the lab?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Traveling, scuba diving, and fostering rescue dogs (alongside my own 3 rescue dogs) with my husband are my favorite things to do outside of the lab. I love hockey and am a loyal Nashville Predators fan. I am also an avid reader and spend many weekends curled up with a good book.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sanders Lab Postdoc Katherine Stefanski’s lab motto might be “a place for everything and everything in its place.” Outside the lab she likes to wreak a bit of havoc in Smashville! That is, when it doesn’t get in the way of a good book. Meet Katherine … What is the focus of your research? I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1185,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5996"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5996"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6002,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5996\/revisions\/6002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/csb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}