(2010-2011)
Taunya began her work in the Devarenne Lab doing prep work. She then conducted research with Joel Gray characterizing the interactions of the Arabidopsis protein kinase AGC 1-3 with PDK1.
Finally, Taunya worked during the 2011 Spring and Fall semesters with Julian Avila identifying, isolating, and characterizing genes coding for beta-subunit of the SnRK (sucrose non-fermenting related kinase) complex in tomato. The two genes identified in this work were named Tau1 and Tau2 after Taunya’s name. Taunya mastered basic PCR, primer design, and cloning techniques such as TOPO cloning and blunt end cloning. She also conducted yeast transformation and yeast two hybrid assays.
From 2013 to 2016 Taunya was in medical school at the Medical University of the Americas. and then she transferred to the medical school at Ross University School of Medicine, where she is currently (as of 01.31.2018).