Ksenia grew up in Tomsk (Russia), where she did her undergraduate degree in Biosciences. After graduation she moved to London and worked for Latis Scientific, Alpha Scientific and Procter&Gamble as a microbiologist. Ksenia joined the Grainger Lab as a PhD student in 2020 to work on activation of antibiotic resistance mechanisms in bacteria. Funded by The Darwin Trust of Edinburgh, Ksenia has discovered how MarA regulates bacterial motility via a unique mechanism of transcription activation. She is now a post-doctoral researcher at Aston University.