CV

EDUCATION

2016– MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Cambridge, MA

PhD candidate in Biology

2011–16 HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, MA

B.A. with honours in Chemical and Physical Biology, GPA 3.73/4.00

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

2017– BURGE LAB at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Graduate student

Investigations of the mechanism of intron-mediated enhancement.

2014–16 CHURCH LAB at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering

Undergraduate student, Research Fellow

Development of novel isolation techniques for extracellular vesicles.

2011–14 SZOSTAK LAB at Massachusetts General Hospital        

Undergraduate student

In vitro selection of a ribozyme capable of catalyzing phospholipid maturation.

PUBLICATIONS

2020 Norman M.*, Ter-Ovanesyan D.*, Trieu W., Lazarovits R., Kowal E.J.K. et al. L1CAM is not Associated with Extracellular Vesicles in Human Cerebrospinal Fluid or Plasma. bioRxiv. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.12.247833

2017 Ter-Ovanesyan D. & Kowal E.J.K., et al. Imaging of Isolated Extracellular Vesicles Using Fluorescence Microscopy. Methods Mol Biol. 2017;1660:233-241. PMID: 28828661

2017 Kowal E.J.K. & Ter-Ovanesyan D., et al. Extracellular Vesicle Isolation and Analysis by Western Blotting. Methods Mol Biol. 2017;1660:143-152. PMID: 28828654

2017 Mateescu B. & Kowal E.J.K., et al. Obstacles and opportunities in the functional analysis of extracellular vesicle RNA–an ISEV position paper. J. Extracell. Vesicles. 2017;6:1286095. PMID: 28326170

2016 Chavez A., et al. Comparison of Cas9 activators in multiple species. Nat Methods. 2016;13:563–567. PMID: 27214048

2015 Kiani S., et al. Cas9 gRNA engineering for genome editing, activation and repression. Nat Methods. 2015;12(11):1051–1054. PMID: 26344044

PATENTS

2016           TER-OVANESYAN, Dmitry; KOWAL, Emma, Joanna Katharina; CHURCH, George, M.; REGEV, Aviv; (WO2016172598) EXOSOMES AND USES THEREOF

TALKS & POSTERS

2018 Kowal E.J.K. & Burge, C. B. Different mammalian introns enhance gene expression at different steps. Poster presented at The RNA society 23rd annual meeting; 2018 May 29-June 3; University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA.

2017 Kowal, E.J.K. et al. Isolating neuronal exosomes using cell-type specific protein markers. Oral presentation at International Society for Extracellular Vesicles Annual Meeting; 2017 May 18-21; Toronto, Canada. 

2015 Kowal, E.J.K. et al. Distinguishing nucleic acids inside extracellular vesicles from those outside. Oral presentation at ISEV Research Seminar on EV-associated RNA; 2015 Sep 24-25; Utrecht, The Netherlands.

2015 Kowal, E.J.K. et al. Thinking outside the cell: nucleic acid content of exosomes and extracellular fluid. Poster presented at The 2015 National Collegiate Research Conference; 2015 Jan 22-24; Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2020 Teaching Assistant, Quantitative Biology (7.57), MIT

2017          Teaching Assistant, Introductory Biology (7.012), MIT

AWARDS

2017 Winner of MIT Biology Science Slam

2015 Thomas T. Hoopes Prize for senior thesis, “Thinking outside the cell: nucleic acid content of exosomes and extracellular fluid”

2015 2nd place at Festival of Bad Ad-hoc Hypotheses

2014 Herchel Smith-Harvard Undergraduate Research Fellow

2014 Origins of Life Initiative Undergraduate Research Award (declined)

2013 Origins of Life Initiative Undergraduate Research Award

2013 Harvard College Program for Research in Science and Engineering (declined)

2012 David Rockefeller International Experience Grant

LEADERSHIP & WORK EXPERIENCE

2020– Co-captain of MIT Climbing Team

2014–15 President of the Harvard Community of Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics

2012–14     Head Tutor, Harvard College Writing Centre, Harvard University

2011–13 Bartender at Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub