Nata Dudkina
Nata Dudkina is a Ph.D. student in Yale’s Department of Chemistry, specializing in chemical biology. Her research focuses on discovering novel small molecules implicated in immunometabolism through mass spectrometry-based metabolomics approaches. Nata received a B.S. in Biochemistry and a minor in Mathematics from the University of Vermont, where she was also a general chemistry teaching assistant. At Yale, she has served as a teaching fellow for both an organic chemistry lab and a graduate level lecture course. Nata is a recipient of the T.F. Cooke Award given by Yale’s Department of Chemistry which recognizes excellence among teaching fellows. Nata’s passion for teaching has led her to serve as a science fair mentor for 4th grade students and a lead instructor for high school students in the Yale Young Global Scholars Program. She is dedicated to creating classroom environments that facilitate critical questions, new ideas, and mutual feedback. As a McDougal Graduate Teaching Fellow, she hopes to learn and share inclusive teaching practices as well as active learning pedagogies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.