Dr. Christine Rodriguez is a Molecular Biologist with a focus in Microbiology and Genetics. She earned her Ph.D. in Molceular Biology at Harvard University/Harvard Medical School while studying the regulation of gene expression. Her postdoctoral research continued at Harvard Medical School studying the pathogenicity of Salmonella. Dr. Rodriguez teaches Elements of Microbiology in the Biology Department.

In addition, Dr. Rodriguez has interests in developing K-12 STEAM education curriculum and opportunities for enrichment. She has developed high school Biology curriculum with the Harvard Outreach Program. And, she has contributed locally in Fairfield county with opportunities for K-12 students to learn computer coding and engineering.

Dr. Rodriguez' research interests have focused on the regulation of gene expression in eukaryotic cells. Specifically, she contributed to the characterization of the mRNA capping enzyme and its recruitment to RNA Polymerase II.

Dr. Rodriguez' interests also include K-12 STEAM education efforts.

Christine R. Rodriguez, Lisa M. Schechter, and Catherine A. Lee. Detection and characterization of the S. typhimurium HilA protein. 2002. BMC Microbiology 2(1):31, 104-112. Christine R. Rodriguez, Eun-Jung Cho, Michael-C. Keogh, Claire L. Moore, Arno L. Greenleaf, and Stephen Buratowski. Kin28, the TFIIH- associated CTD kinase, facilitates the recruitment of mRNA processing machinery to RNA pol II. 2000. Mol Cell Biol. 20, 104-112. Christine R. Rodriguez*, Eun-Jung Cho*, Toshimitsu Takagi, and Stephen Buratowski. Allosteric interactions between capping enzyme subunits and the RNA polymerase II C-Terminal Domain. 1998. Genes & Development, 12:3482-3487. (* denotes co-first authorship) Eun-Jung Cho, Toshimitsu Takagi, Christine R. Moore, and Stephen Buratowski. mRNA capping enzyme is recruited to the transcription complex by phosphorylation of the RNA polymerase II carboxy-terminal domain. 1997. Genes & Development 11:3319-3326. Toshimitsu Takagi, Christine R. Moore, Felix Diehn, and Stephen Buratowski. An RNA 5' triphosphatase related to the protein tyrosine phosphatases. 1997. Cell 89:867-873. D.B. Taylor, Christine R. Moore, R. Dixon-Kolar, and M. Retzer. The effectiveness of supplemental instruction in teaching cell biology at Illinois Benedictine College. Molec. Bio. of the Cell, 5s, 487a, and 34th annual meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology, 1994.