Nikolitsa “Litsa” Wooten

Litsa Wooten’s mother is Greek and joined the US Army, where she met Litsa’s father. Her family lived in Germany, Qatar, England, and Greece. Litsa attended Pinewood International American School in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Litsa started her undergraduate studies at Kansas State University (KSU) with a major in Animal Science and Industries (ASI) and a focus on Pre-Vet. She later changed her major to Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology with a minor in ASI. During her sophomore year, Litsa began working in a mammal research lab at KSU. As an undergraduate, she assisted master’s students with their research on the phylogeography of mammals of the Great Plains and went on mammal collection field trips to Manitoba, South Dakota, Texas, and Minnesota. Her work in this lab piqued her interest in managing museum mammal collections.

After graduating, Litsa took a gap year and worked at the Comparative Medicine Group at KSU Vet-Med. There she learned how to care for various laboratory animals used for medical research. Then she started working at the Veterinary Diagnostic Laboratory at KSU Vet-Med to gain experience with Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) and learn how to accession things into a database in preparation for her Museum Studies degree.

Litsa is working in the mammal collection under the advisement of Dr. Joe Cook with the UNM Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB), investigating pathogens in mammals.