CURI Academic Year Student Researcher Fall 25 - Kraut bei St. Olaf College

Job Title: CURI Academic Year Student Researcher

Classification: Student Employee (non-exempt)

Name and Address of Employer: St. Olaf College, 1520 St. Olaf Ave, Northfield, MN 55057

If the position requires the student to work off campus, provide the name and address here:

Department Name: CURI

Unit Number (5 digits): 16118

Length of Position: See Employment Authorization  

Contact Person/Supervisor: Faculty advisor

Pay Rate (Check One)  Standard Hourly Rate  x  Supervisory/Special Skills Hourly Rate

Description of the Position: (Purpose of the Position): Students work together with a faculty member on scholarly or artistic projects. 

Project Title: Mathematical Modeling of Epigenetic Mechanisms driving Treatment Resistance

Faculty Mentor: Anna Kraut

Project Description: Mathematical modeling plays an important role in understanding complex biological systems. The goal of this project is to study how the epigenetic mechanism of DNA methylation impacts cell properties such as drug resistance. This work is part of an ongoing collaboration with a group of researchers from the UMN and builds on a CURI Summer 2025 project.

In previous work, students have implemented stochastic simulations for the mathematical DNA methylation model and confirmed that it can reproduce the experimentally observed temporal stability of methylation profiles under biologically reasonable assumptions. Moreover, they have computationally and theoretically studied the switching between different methylation levels, investigating whether the complicated single cell model can be simplified to study a cell population level response.

Over the course of this Fall 2025 project, a team of students will work on fine tuning the search of the parameter space to identify criteria that drive phenotypic switching. They will further investigate the distribution of switching times, find scenarios in which a simplified model is justified, and use this simplification to study implications for whole cell populations, e.g. under treatment impacting the cell cycle length. Additionally, they will work on efficacy and user friendliness of the code and work towards making the project ready for publication. The outcome of the project will be presented to collaborators at the UMN and contribute to a research paper that will be submitted for publication.

Students who would like to work on this projects should have some experience with mathematical modeling, probability theory, differential equations, and Python coding, as well as an interest in biological applications. They will learn to apply these skills in an interdisciplinary and collaborative setting, work with stochastic processes (both computationally and theoretically), and communicate their findings (in writing and presentations).

If you are interested in the project and/or have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to [email protected].

Transferable Skills: Research and presentations.

Duties and Responsibilities: Each project has its own timing (number of hours per week and number of weeks), as determined by the individual faculty mentor. See the CURI Digital Olaf database for individual project descriptions and details.

Qualifications: (Education/Experience/Skills) A student interested in applying for the CURI academic year program must be enrolled as an on-campus St. Olaf student. There is no GPA requirement that must be met in order to apply for the program, but a student’s academic record will be considered during the selection process. Skills are dependent on individual projects.

If you don’t have a work award and select, No, to the application questions your application will be automatically rejected by the system. If you apply and are rejected please contact Erin Eltonga to resolve this for you.

Wage Range: $11.75-12.75

This job description is for general information purposes.  It is not intended to list all duties and responsibilities of the position.  This job description is subject to change at any time by St. Olaf College, with or without prior notice.