Dr. Stef Elorriaga
Postdoctoral Scholar
Stef grew up in Caracas, Venezuela. She moved to the USA to pursue her higher education. She obtained a B.S. in Electrical Engineering at Penn State University. She worked as an analog circuit designer for 2 years before acknowledging that engineering was not her calling (even though she had known it all along). She moved with her husband and two cats to Corvallis, OR, to change her career and ended up with a M.S. in Biological and Ecological Engineering (she stubbornly could not give up the engineering title…it sounds so smart and put-together) and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology of forest trees (finally she pursued what she loved). She has been in love with plants her entire life and with genetics and trait inheritance even since she learned of Gregor Mendel’s work. She is interested in understanding gene regulation from both an individual gene level and a global genomic level. Her PhD work focused on modifying essential flowering genes in eucalypts, poplars, and aspens. Her first two years as a postdoc scholar in NC State focused on making synthetic promoters to modify gene expression. Her work with the Gage lab focused on understanding the effects of active uORFs on gene expression and protein translation. As a native South American and an expert in arepas and cachapas, she thinks corn is the best grain.