About your instructor:

Kay Gilles lives in the Santa Cruz mountains and has worked in the bay area for more than 25 years.  She recently retired from her corporate job and is now fulfilling her long held dream to teach biology part time.  When she is not on campus, she can be found spending time with her energetic grandson usually at the beach in Santa Cruz, or kayaking as a Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary Naturalist, working in the orchards on her property, doing yoga and, as always, continuing her karate training.

Kay has a bachelors and masters degree from the University of Colorado and PhD from the University of California, Santa Cruz, all in Biological Sciences.  She held a post-doctoral position at UCSF in Stan Pruisiner’s lab working on Prions and a post-graduate research position at UC Berkeley in Mary Claire King’s lab working on Lupus, AIDS/HIV. 

Sunset paddling off the Santa Cruz coast