Dr. Coggins is a post-doctoral researcher in the laboratory of Dr. Luis Carvajal-Carmona at the UC Davis Genome Center. She received her PhD from UC Davis in 2019 in Molecular, Cellular and Integrative Physiology where she developed a novel genome editing platform for the functional modeling of cancer risk-associated variants. During her time as a graduate student, Dr. Coggins also help to found ESTEME (pronounced “esteem”), a student-run organization focused on increasing diversity and equity in the STEM disciplines through community engagement and outreach. Her current research as an NCI diversity supplement awardee is now focused on the generation and characterization of pre-clinical models of gastric cancer from underrepresented minority populations.