Ahna R Skop

Ahna Skop is a geneticist, artist, science communicator, and champion for the underrepresented in science. Her lab studies how cells divide. Cell division is highly dependent on visual data, which dovetails perfectly with one of her other passions, art. Ahna has several scientific art installations on the UW-Madison campus and she has also curated, and created several traveling science art exhibitions. She is equally passionate about increasing the numbers of underrepresented students in STEAM fields. Ahna majored in biology and minored in ceramics at Syracuse University, obtained her Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology at UW-Madison, and her post-doctoral work at UC-Berkeley. Ahna is a Professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and an affiliate faculty member in Life Sciences Communication and the Division of the Arts at the UW-Madison. One of her great hobbies is traveling and baking, including scientific cakes, and manages a foodblog, foodskop.com in her free time. She is also working on a cookbook about scientists called Lab Culture: A Recipe for Innovation in Science. As a side hustle she just started a science art company to promote science artists and science art inspired home decor called: Skopology.