Zarja Miovic is a second-year Microbial Biology PhD student. Zarja is interested in studying pathogens that cause zoonotic, vector-borne diseases, so she decided to do her graduate research in Dr. Alvaro Toledo’s Lab in the Entomology Department. Zarja studies various tick-borne pathogens, but her PhD research focuses on the cell membrane physiology of the spirochete bacterium, Borrelia burgdorferi, which causes Lyme disease in humans. Zarja also received her BS degree in Microbiology from Rutgers, during which time she did research in Dr. Bradley Hillman’s Virology Lab, Department of Plant Biology. Zarja's undergraduate research was on hypoviruses that could be used as potential biological control agents against the pathogenic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, which causes chestnut blight.