Betsy Kurnik

Research Assistant and Associate Curator

I grew up near Clarksburg, West Virginia, so I am a native of the state. I attended WVU as an undergraduate student in Plant and Soil Sciences, and then went on to complete an M.S. degree in Plant Pathology, with Dan Panaccione as advisor. I began my job with INVAM in 1999 shortly after completing my thesis research on "Diversity of ectomycorrhizal fungi from a metal-stressed site". In additional to doing all the normal tasks required to sustain the collection (culture manipulation, data entry, etc.), I also developed the protocols for extraction of whole DNA, with the intent of preserving this material as vouchers should anything happen to the original germplasm.

Unfortunately, within a year after taking this job, my husband was offered a position in the "research triangle" area of North Carolina and we had to leave. It didn't take me long to find a job (thankfully, given the cost of living there), and I now work for Paradigm Genetics.