Kabita Baral

I am PhD-level computational biologist and bioinformatician specializing in molecular evolution, single‑cell genomics, and neural/stem cell biology. She has extensive experience developing and applying advanced bioinformatics pipelines (single-cell RNA‑seq, gene regulatory networks, evolutionary analysis) to study Schwann cells, neural stem cells, and conserved genes across species. Her background spans pharmaceutical sciences, bioinformatics, and molecular biology, with strong programming skills, multiple peer‑reviewed publications, international teaching experience, and significant leadership in graduate governance, science communication, and community service.

• Trainee Communications Committee member, Stem Cell Network (09/2021 – 10/2022)
• Co-director, StemCellTalks, University of Calgary (05/2021 – 05/2022)
• Graduate Students’ Association VP Student Life, university of Calgary (04/2021 – current)
• Graduate Student Representative, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Dean Search Committee (11/2020 – 04/2021)
• Junior co-director, StemCellTalks, University of Calgary (10/2020 – 05/2021)
• Graduate Students’ Association VP Finance and Services, University of Calgary (04/2020 – 04/2021)
• Finance coordinator, Science Slam Canada (04/2021- Current)
• Media Personnel, Amigo miner Organization, UTEP (02/2019 –05/2019)
• Vice president of Bioinformatics Club, BioinTX, UTEP (05/2018 – 05/2019)
• Students’ representative spokesperson, WHO/GMP Training for industrial pharmacy practice, (Feb 18-19, 2017)
• Team leader, Undergraduate thesis, “Ethnomedicinal Survey, Phytochemical Screening, Anti- Oxidative and Antibacterial Activity of Artocarpus heterophyllus Seed” (2016)

• Pre-conference event’s organizer for Till and McCulloch Conference, Trainee Communications Committee, Stem Cell Network, (04/2022 – 10/2022)
• Pre-conference event’s organizer for Till and McCulloch Conference, Trainee Communications Committee, Stem Cell Network, (09/2021 – 11/2021)
• Session chair for Undergraduate Research Day, faculty of Veterinary Medicine, University of Calgary, (08/2021)
• Abstract Adjudication for Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Undergraduate Research Day, University of Calgary, (08/2021)
• Personalized land acknowledgment workshop, Graduate Students’ Association, University of Calgary, (08/2021)
• Abstract Adjudication for Faculty of Veterinary Medicine Research Day, University of Calgary, (04/2021)
• Adjudication for Internationalization award, University of Calgary, (Dec 2020)
• Adjudication for Sustainability Award, Office of Sustainability, University of Calgary, (Dec 2020)
• Judication for Undergraduate Research Symposium, Students’ Union, University of Calgary, (Nov 2020)
• “Creating a culture of respect”, virtual workshop from Center for Sexuality, (Sept 10, 2020)
• “Building the future, we deserve”, virtual workshop about being an ally and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, (Aug 6, 2020)
• Team Building workshop, Canada (July 23, July 30, 2020)
• Volunteer, Stem cell Talks, University of Calgary (April 2020 (cancelled due to COVID))
• Volunteer, El Paso end lupus, El Paso, Texas, USA (09/2018)
• Volunteer, El Paso fight hunger, El Paso, Texas, USA (03/2018)
• Volunteer, Educating adolescents on Female Sexual and Reproductive Health and Hygiene, Pokhara, Nepal (06/2017 - 08/2017)
• Volunteer, Health camp, Pokhara, Nepal (2016) Certified first aid training, Pokhara, Nepal (2009)

• Teaching Assistant 05/18/2024- 05/29/2024
• Wellcome Genomics Campus, Hinxton, UK – CoME course.
• 11-day course on computational molecular evolution.
• Pre-course practice assignments preparation.
• Support during lectures.
• Assist students with analyzing their doctoral research dataset.
• Provide feedback to students with their methods of choice.
• Organized and moderated the career session.
• Teaching Assistant 08/2023- 04/2024
• University of Calgary – MDSc-408
• Lecture/Tutorial lead – R programming.
• Helped with BINF practical sessions.
• Graded the quizzes and exams of approximately 80 students each semester.
• Helped with updating some lecture slides.
• Created BINF practice and assignment modules for R programming.
• Teaching Assistant 01/2018- 05/2019
• UTEP - Department of Biology
• Material preparation (quizzes and ppt) regarding microbiology, general biology, anatomy and physiology.
• Hold exams for three classes of 45-200 students occasionally
• Grade the quizzes and exams of approximately 250 students each semester, for three semesters.
• Teaching Assistant 08/2017 – 12/2017, 06/2018 – 08/2018
• UTEP - Math Resources for Student Center
• Tutored various mathematical topics from sets, algebra, coordinate geometry, and various special topics in arithmetic to calculus as well as matrix algebra and discrete mathematics.
• Pharmacovigilance: Manipal Teaching Hospital, Pokhara, Kaski, Nepal 11/2016-12/2016
• Provided information on drug’s adverse effects and recorded any adverse effects reported by doctor, nurse and patients, and thus assisted in monitoring, assessment and prevention of Adverse Drug Reaction

• University of Calgary 08/2019 – current
• Title: Characterization of human skin- and nerve- derived Schwann cells using Single-cell RNA-sequencing
• The goal of the project is to study if skin- and nerve- derived Schwann cells are transcriptomically equivalent.
• Performed data quality control and downstream analysis for differential gene expression as well as gene regulatory network (GRN) analysis using Seurat and SCENIC pipeline.
• Title: What drives the adoption of ependymal cells versus neural stem/progenitor cells from radial glial cells?
• The goal of the project is identifying the genes and transcription factors that drive fate of radial glial cells into ependymal cells.
• Utilized five datasets from different time points and downstream analysis for differential gene expression as well as gene regulatory network (GRN) analysis using Seurat, Monocle, velocyto and SCENIC pipelines.
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center 03/2019 – 07/2019
• Title: ZMAT2: Understanding evolution of a highly conserved but understudied gene in primates
• Performing multiple sequence alignments of ZMAT2 protein across various vertebrates
• Performing RNAseq analysis for primates to study alternate splicing of the DNA sequence and to look for recounts.
• Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center 09/2018 – 07/2019
• Title: The Insulin-like Growth Factor 2 Gene in Mammals: Organizational Complexity within a Conserved Locus
• Working under Dr. Leung to understand how conserved structural features of gene and its locus could provide insights into aspects of mammalian evolution.
• Annotating data from publicly available databases, and using them to gain insight on genetic disorders of IGF2 gene
• The University of Texas at El Paso 04/2018 – 07/2019
• Title: Overexpression of p62/IMP2 Promotes Cell Migration in Hepatocellular Carcinoma
• Working under Dr. Zhang, on a biomarker for hepatocellular carcinoma
• Using databases such as UniProt, NCBI and KEGG, and tools like R and python to analyze over/under-expression of various genes associated with p62.
• Pokhara University, Nepal 08/2016 – 12/2016
• Title: Ethnomedicinal Survey, Phytochemical Screening, Anti-Oxidative and Antibacterial Activity of Artocarpus heterophyllus Seed
• Visited various neighboring villages to interview locals about their knowledge on nutraceutical and medicinal properties, as well as culinary practice of the seed.
• Conducted chemical and spectroscopic screening for various activities of the seed and its peel individually.

• Participated in CoME course, Wellcome Genomics Campus, Hinxton, UK (July, 2022)
• Participated in Till & McCulloch 2020 conference, Vancouver, Canada, (Nov 15-17, 2021)
• Canadian Neuroscience Association Symposium (CAN), Canada, (August 23-24, 2021)
• OITE Self- Advocacy and Assertiveness workshop, Virtual workshop by NIH, (Dec 8, 2020)
• “Science communication training webinar” by Hotdocs and World Congress of Science and Factual Producers (WCSFP), (Nov 26, 2020)
• GPDN Canadian Career symposium for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, Canada, (Nov 2-6, 2020)
• Participated in Till & McCulloch 2020 conference, Vancouver, Canada, (Oct 26-28, 2020)
• Scicomm program, a six-weeks course series about science communication by Dr. Jeff Dunn, University of Calgary (Sept 16-Oct 21, 2020)
• EMBL virtual workshop series for proteomics and genomics, (Sept 23, 29, 30; Oct 6, 13, 14, 20)
• Participated in RNA-seq Analysis workshop organized by Stem Cell Network, Ottawa, Canada, (July 27-28, 2020)
• Participated in WHO/GMP Training for industrial pharmacy practice, (Feb 18-19, 2017).

• Chu, T. H., Baral, K., Labit, E., Rosin, N., Sinha, S., Umansky, D., ... & Midha, R. (2022). Comparison of human skin-and nerve-derived Schwann cells reveals many similarities and subtle genomic and functional differences. Glia, 70(11), 2131-2156.
• Abbasi, S., Adoungotchodo, A., Ansari, U., Baghdadli, M., Baral, K., Bashth, O., Braam, M., Datzkiw, D., Dierolf, J., Feulner, L. and Hammond, C., 2021. Evaluation of Tavakol et al.: Harnessing organs- on-a-chip to model tissue regeneration. Cell Stem Cell, 28(6), pp.979-982.
• Rotwein, P. and Baral, K., 2020. Zmat2 in mammals: conservation and diversification among genes and pseudogenes. BMC genomics, 21(1), pp.1-17.
• Baral, K. and Rotwein, P., 2020. ZMAT2 in Humans and Other Primates: A Highly Conserved and Understudied Gene. Evolutionary Bioinformatics, 16, p.1176934320941500.
• Baral, K. and Rotwein, P., 2019. The insulin-like growth factor 2 gene in mammals: Organizational complexity within a conserved locus. PloS one, 14(6), p.e0219155.
• Kandel S, Baral K, Gurung A, Gurung B, Adhikari D, Gurung R, Sapkota B and Kaundinnyayana A: Anti-oxidative, antibacterial activity and phytochemical screening of Artocarpus heterophyllus seed extracts. Int J Pharm Sci & Res 2019; 10(6): 2812-18. doi: 10.13040/ IJPSR.0975- 8232.10(6).2812-18.