Damini Khera grew up in the Seattle area and developed a love for both the nature and the city. Damini attended college at the University of Washington and earned a B.S. in Microbiology. During her last year at UW, Damini worked with Seattle University and Swedish Hospital to distribute and vaccinate Seattle community members. Continuing her passion for interacting with the community, she helped supervise the City of Seattle and Swedish Hospital vaccination clinic through to its conclusion in June 2021. Damini then moved to the Washington State Dept. of Health where she worked on jumpstarting the West Nile Virus Surveillance program, marine water testing, COVID wastewater surveillance, and more.

Damini then joined the Malik lab, and is currently working with Rechel Geiger on the innate immune protein MxA’s rapid evolution and its interaction with influenza nucleoprotein. MxA works broadly against many different viruses but has specific pathways of recognizing them. Studying the MxA and influenza arms race, Damini hopes gain a better understanding of how the two proteins directly interact.

Outside of lab, Damini enjoys the outdoors, traveling, sailing and inevitably repairing her old boat.