​Rebecca Varney​

​Postdoc 2021-Present  University of California, Santa Barbara
​
​[email protected]
@RebeccaMVarney
4111 Life Sciences, UCSB

​PhD 2021                       University of Alabama  
MS 2016   ​                      University of West Florida   
BS 2011 ​ ​                         University of California, Davis

I grew up in Northern California, where the Lawrence Hall of Science's free admission days formed the foundation of my love of discovery. This passion was furthered by a spontaneous tour of the invertebrate collections at UC Berkeley because a professor replied to a child's excited letter and invited me to dream of college.

I completed a bachelor's at UC Davis in Genetics and then worked for a time before continuing with a Masters in Biology at the University of West Florida, where I studied regeneration genetics in starfish. I completed a PhD at the University of Alabama focused on chitons, but diversified my research interests as I found power in 'omics as a uniting force.

I am proud to be the first Master's and the first PhD in my family, and plan to enter academia as a professor despite family members who occasionally ask why I'm STILL in school. :)

cv

Oakley Lab Homepage

If you're on campus, come by so I can show you ostracods and ask you aggressively if you think they're cute.