Dr. Amelia McKitterick received a BA in biology from Vassar College and went on to conduct her graduate research in the lab of Dr. Kimberley Seed at The University of California, Berkeley. There, she investigated the molecular interplay between a phage defense island and the specific phage it had evolved to parasitize to understand the dynamics of the phage-host battle and to shed new light on the ecological constraints that drive phage and host co-evolution.

Dr. McKitterick then brought her phage expertise to Boston for her postdoctoral studies in the lab of Dr. Thomas Bernhardt at Harvard Medical School, where she utilized the complex interactions of phages and their hosts to examine bacterial cell envelope assembly and disassembly, with a focus on corynebacteria and mycobacteria.

In her independent lab at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, Dr. McKitterick continues to probe phage-host interactions to provide fundamental new insights into the biology and reveal novel ways of targeting corynebacterial and mycobacterial infections.