Maia V. Palka
Evolutionary microbiology & protistology
About Me
I'm an evolutionary biologist and protistologist broadly interested in understanding how episymbiotic interactions between bacteria and protists can shape the metabolism and evolution of both partners, particularly in hypoxic environments. I integrate fieldwork, molecular biology and electron microscopy to discover novel species of symbiont-bearing protists and apply single-cell (or cultivation-independent) techniques to examine the processes that drive each partnership.
I'm also interested in examining the evolution of cytoskeletal traits in understudied heterotrophic protists closely related to photosynthetic lineages, particularly euglenids and cryptists. Both euglenids and cryptists have lineages that acquired photosynthesis through the secondary endosymbiotic acquisition of algal plastids, and these phototrophic lineages have close heterotrophic relatives that are active predators of algal prey. Examining how cytoskeletal traits in these heterotrophic relatives have evolved to facilitate prey capture can help inform the ancient evolutionary processes necessary for endosymbiosis in predatory lineages.
I completed my B.Sc in Applied Biology at the University of British Columbia in 2023 and joined the Leander Lab as an undergraduate research assistant in June 2023. I began my PhD in Botany in the lab in September 2023.
I am an amateur astronomer and previously worked as an interpreter and science communicator at the H.R Macmillan Space Centre. When I’m not in the lab or looking at the stars, I can often be found in the ocean - either diving, paddleboarding, or aboard a sailboat – or out in the forest foraging for mushrooms.
