Riana Hunter

Graduate Student Researcher

Riana grew up in San Diego and attended Mills College in Oakland for her undergraduate degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior. Her first ​undergraduate lab job was working on ​the behavioral ecology of social mammals under Dr. Jennifer Smith. ​As part of this work, ​during undergrad she spent much of her time recording social interactions of a population of California ground squirrels.

Following graduation, her first lab position was ​at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab​ doing mammalian functional genomics work. Since starting her career, ​Riana has worked with the Lawrence Berkeley Lab and the Joint Genome Institute on several projects relating to human embryonic development, mammalian enhancer biology, and plant-fungal interactions in biofuel crops.

When not in the lab, ​Riana can be found ​sitting on the beach, ​working on an art project, or watching a Sci-Fi show with her pet snake, Bucatini.
Publications