Dr. Lodoen’s research is on innate immunity and host defense in response to infection with the protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, and focuses on the response in the central nervous system (CNS). Dr. Lodoen has mentored 10 pre-doctoral students and 3 post-doctoral fellows, including 3 URM students. She served as the School of Biological Sciences DECADE mentor to increase recruitment and retention of women and underrepresented minority students in doctoral programs at UCI. She is also the course director of the immunology module in the prestigious Biology of Parasitism course at the Marine Biological Laboratories in Woods Hole, MA. Dr. Lodoen is also the PI on a recently awarded T32 Training Grant in Microbiology & Infectious Diseases at UCI (there is minimal overlap between Immunology T32 and the Microbiology T32, which has a major focus on microbiome research (See Table 3). Dr. Lodoen’s current students include Kathryn Olivia Yanes, who is a URM graduate student in the MD/PhD (MSTP) program, and Stephanie Matsuno and Stephanie Orchanian, all of whom are training grant eligible.