Micala Hammond graduated from the University of Tampa in 2022 with a B.S. in Biology. There she dedicated two years as a lab mentor to assist undergraduates with their introductory biology and advanced-level parasitology labs. Micala also won the ‘Bob Runday Student Unsung Hero Award’ in 2022 for her positive influence on campus and willingness to help in whatever capacity possible. She also received the ‘Outstanding Overall Biology Senior Award’ in 2023 for her exemplary commitment to her coursework and her role as a teaching assistant.

Micala successfully competed for two summer fellowships following her junior and senior years. Her first Research Enrichment for Undergraduate (REU) was at Montana State University, where she worked under the direction of Dr. Mark Young. She established a novel qPCR assay to identify and characterize putative, archaeal viral clusters isolated from high-temperature environments in Yellowstone National Park.

In her second REU at The University of Iowa, she worked in the lab of Dr. Noah Butler, where she studied the role of the poorly defined atypical B-cells and their response to malaria in mice. More specifically, her work aimed to identify the ability of the host to control a Plasmodium infection upon deletion of the atypical B-cell compartment.