Source: Dancing through the lab? No, but science requires fancy footwork

08 Jul Source: Dancing through the lab? No, but science requires fancy footwork

By Kristen Browning-Blas
Colorado State University

Winning grants for mosquito research is just as competitive as “Dancing with the Stars.” Rushika Perera should know. The assistant professor of virology recently won a 2016 Boettcher Foundation Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Award, one of 10 in Colorado, for her studies of mosquito-borne viruses at Colorado State University.

When she’s not in the lab, she’s on a dance floor, competing in ballroom, Latin, and West Coast Swing dance events around the country. She actually wrote the Boettcher grant application at a dance competition. “I was energized. I just sat and wrote for 12 hours, all through the night.”