Margaret Gatongi

I am a Senior Teaching Laboratory Administrator in the department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke University and a part-time doctoral student at Virginia Commonwealth University. My doctoral work focuses on the evaluation of STEM education programs in higher education using quantitative and qualitative methods. I was born and raised in Kenya, where I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Nairobi. After interning at the Kenya Agricultural Research Institute, I joined Kenya Wildlife Services, where I learned from and worked alongside experts and rural communities on exploring and implementing sustainable use of natural resources for income generation. I later completed a Master’s degree at Marshall University, studying freshwater amoebae and their phylogenetic relationships through DNA sequencing. At Duke, I mentor students in hands-on lab skills, and in 2022, I was awarded the Louis L. Imhoff Award for Distinguished Teaching and Mentorship.