Trainee Spotlight: Kaja Falkenhain, PhD UBCO
This summer the BC Diabetes Research Network is pleased to shine a spotlight on recent graduate Kaja Falkenhain, PhD from the Little Lab in the Department of Health & Exercise Science at the UBC Okanagan campus.
Congratulations Kaja on completing your PhD in June! We want to wish you the best of luck with your post doctoral fellowship!
BCDRN Trainee Spotlight
Name: Kaja Falkenhain
Program: Kinesiology
Department: School of Health and Exercise Sciences
Supervisor: Jonathan Little, Exercise Metabolism and Inflammation Lab (EMIL)
Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the land of sausages, beer, and sauerkraut – but travelled around lots and lived in different places after school.
What did you study for your undergraduate degree and where did you go to school before UBC?
I studied cognitive sciences in a small university town in Germany, before conducting my Honours thesis project in a biomedical engineering lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, USA on the effects of voluntary exercise on brain blood flow in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease.
What got you interested in diabetes research?
During my undergraduate degree, I first participated in a summer school on developments in Alzheimer’s disease research that then led to a Mitacs research internship at UBC Vancouver a couple of years later, during which I explored the effects of antidiabetic medication on the progression of Alzheimer’s disease pathophysiology. That piqued my interest in diabetes research and also sparked my passion for research in general – I still remember the excitement of loading my first Western Blot! It was also during this research internship that I got in touch with my current PhD advisor, Dr. Jonathan Little.
How far along are you in your degree and what do you hope to achieve in 2023 with your research?
I am actually done! I defended my dissertation on the effects of endogenous and exogenous ketosis on cardiometabolic health in late June of this year. I’ve been sticking around for a few months to wrap things up – and am now transitioning to a postdoctoral fellowship at Pennington Biomedical Research Institute in the US that will focus on the broader field of nutrition and metabolism. I am hoping to be able to take some of the skills I’ve acquired throughout my PhD into this new environment and start carving out my own little research niche.
Any advice/words of wisdom to share with other trainees about starting grad school or on how you found ways to connect with colleagues?
Lots of coffee walks!
The past few years have been a pandemic and travel has been restricted. Now that travel is allowed, where do you want to go and why?
I will be traveling (moving temporarily, in fact!) to the US for my postdoctoral fellowship. Also, I’m going to attend European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Germany this year – that will be extra special as the conference takes place in my hometown and I will be able to (re)connect with my Kelowna/UBCO colleagues there!
