Lisa Karstens, PhD is an Assistant Professor at Oregon Health & Science University in the Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology (Division of Bioinformatics and Computational Biomedicine) with a joint appointment in Obstetrics and Gynecology (Division of Urogynecology). She received her PhD in Chemistry from Princeton University prior to completing post-doctoral work in Bioinformatics and Urogynecology at OHSU. As faculty, she has been awarded the Oregon BIRWCH K12 career development award to investigate the urinary microbiome in women with overactive bladder syndrome, followed by an NIH NIDDK K01 Research Scientist Development Award to understand the functional contribution of the urinary microbiome to the bladder.
Dr. Karstens’ research interests broadly span using bioinformatics to understand the complex relationship between the human microbiome and disease, with a focus on women’s health and bladder disorders. Current research includes development of bioinformatic tools and novel integrative multi-omic approaches (such as metagenomics and metabolomics) to improve the analysis of microbial communities and microbiome function to ascertain the clinical utility of microbiomes. To accelerate the impact of her work, she collaborates with clinicians and molecular biologists on a variety of projects, including the role of microbiome in rheumatic, neurologic, behavioral, and gynecologic disorders.
Dr. Karstens has a passion for teaching and mentoring as evidenced by a number of students ranging from high school to postdoctoral and medical fellows in her lab. She is involved with several outreach programs to engage underrepresented minority students and early career scientists in biomedical research, such as BUILD EXITO, and regularly participates as a mentor for summer research experiences. She teaches an introductory programming course in Python, as well as guest lectures on bioinformatic approaches and algorithms for studying the human microbiome.