Alliston Lab

Serra Kaya, PhD

Education
PhD, Biomedical Engineering, The City College of New York, NY, 2017
BSc, Chemical Engineering, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2010
Exchange Student Visitor, Chemical Engineering, Kansas State University, KS, 2008

Biography
While working towards her BS degree in chemical engineering from Bogazici University, Istanbul, Serra’s vision for her future studies underwent a drastic change when she attended Kansas State University as an exchange student. Immersed in the researched environment and delighted by the welcoming ambience of the academia, she decided to further pursue her research interests. During her bachelors, besides developing her engineering skillset, she had grown an interest towards human biology, which she had the opportunity to explore further in her PhD studies in biomedical engineering at The City University of New York. As a graduate assistant, she worked with Prof. Mitchell B. Schaffler in Bone and Joint Laboratory. She investigated the term called “osteocytic osteolysis” and its effect on bone material properties under physiological condition: lactation. During her graduate studies, she developed a method to measure elastic modulus at the microscopic level in mouse bone and she advanced technical imaging skills to visualize local mineral alterations using scanning electron microscopy in backscattered mode. She was selected to present her work in a spotlight session at the Orthopedic Research Society (ORS) in 2014. She also had poster presentations at various nationwide conferences.

Serra joined the Alliston Lab as a postdoctoral scholar in March 2018. Her research interest in this lab is to investigate the genetic determinants of bone fragility and identify mechanisms related to perilacunar/canalicular remodeling that control bone quality.

Research Interests
• Bone biomechanics
• Next generation sequencing
• Biomedical infomatics

Favorite Dessert
Ice cream

Contact
Serra.Kaya [at] ucsf.edu