Meet Tanya

We sat down with Tanya, our lovely, friendly and exceptional bioinformatics analyst intern. She is an expert in bioinformatics and has helped farmers to understand the microbiome.

What is your role in Healthy Hydroponics and what do you do?

Currently I am a Bioinformatics analyst intern. This means that I get to apply my knowledge about bioinformatics to help create reports for clients to better understand the microbiome of their hydroponic systems.

From your perspective, what is the most exciting thing about Healthy Hydroponics?

One of the most exciting things about Healthy Hydroponics is the focus on the client. I think it is truly amazing that our services are so customizable to the client and also take the clients feedback into consideration when making improvements to our reports. I also love the focus on innovation and the team’s ability to work together to meet a common goal of creating a pathogen surveillance service that meets the needs of all hydroponic growers.

What is your expertise?

Currently I have been working on becoming an expert in the field of bioinformatics by learning as many tools as I can. One of the biggest challenges of bioinformatics is learning the different coding languages and keeping up with all the changes. I have become an expert in learning to keep up with these changes. I started off coding in a Unix environment and writing shell scripts, after mastering that I moved onto PERL, Python and R. Everyday, I am learning more to become an expert in my field.

What do you enjoy about being a part of the marketing team?

One of my favourite parts about being on the marketing team is being able to reach out to farmers and other people in the agriculture industry to learn from them and build relationships! I think that there is so much to be learnt from others and I think being a part of this team gives me the opportunity to connect with other people to learn from them to help improve our services at Healthy Hydroponics.

What are your interests/hobbies outside of work?

Outside of work, I run my own business teaching science to kids in a fun and creative way. I am very passionate about teaching and finding novel methods of teaching to help encourage curiosity amongst kids. Other than that I also love reading, hiking and spending time outdoors!

What made you pursue a Master’s in biology and bioinformatics?

I decided to pursue a masters in Biology with my research focus being on bioinformatics because I really enjoyed classical genetics. The way that I was introduced to bioinformatics was by taking a bioinformatics course in my undergrad, where I learnt how different software tools can help scientists better understand genomic data. This course taught me how to write basic scripts and although it was challenging at times it was a lot of fun and it made me realize that this is what I wanted to pursue!

Do you play any instruments?

Yes I do! I play and also teach piano. Music has always been a passion of mine and I am so glad I also get to share it with the students that I teach!

What is a travel destination that’s on your bucket list and why?

Iceland! It seems like the perfect destination for someone that loves the outdoors and wants to experience a handful of different landscapes. I have also always wanted to see the Aurora Borealis and this would be the perfect place to see them!

What was the last thing you were really excited about?

Lemon cake pops at Starbucks!

Physical activities or sports that you enjoy?

I enjoy playing most team sports, however, my favourite physical activity to do by myself is run. It gives me time to just be alone with my thoughts and some good music!

What’s something that a lot of people are missing out on because they don’t know about it?

Lemon cake pops at Starbucks!