Kozak pursued graduate research at the University of California, Los Angeles, where she completed doctoral work in microbiology and investigated bacterial pathogenesis. During graduate school, she experienced deep-vein thrombosis and later shared her experience in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention personal story about recognizing blood-clot risk during graduate study, travel, and pregnancy.
Kozak completed a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction at University alif. She subsequently undertook doctoral study at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics. Her UCLA research examined bacterial regulatory and secretion systems, including the Bordetella partner-switching proteins BtrW and BtrV, and she completed the Ph.D. in 2006.
Kozak began her postdoctoral training at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2006 as an American Society for Microbiology/CDC postdoctoral fellow, completing the fellowship in 2008. Her postdoctoral and early CDC research addressed Legionella pneumophila molecular typing, lag-1 alleles, and the relationship between clinical and environmental isolates. She subsequently worked as a research microbiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where she has contributed to the investigation and characterization of Legionella isolates, environmental sampling and culture methods, outbreak investigations, sequence-based typing, whole-genome analysis, and the recognition of emerging Legionella species. Her CDC work has included research in the Division of Bacterial Diseases and the Respiratory Disease Branch, as well as collaboration on public-health guidance, outbreak response, and laboratory methods for Legionella detection and characterization.
Contributed to molecular and genomic research that clarified the population structure, sequence types, and clinical and environmental distribution of Legionella pneumophila.
Co-authored research describing Legionella clemsonensis, a newly recognized Legionella species associated with human pneumonia.
(Book chapter co-authored with Claressa E. Lucas and Jonas...)
2013(Co-authored research describing Legionella clemsonensis, ...)
2016(Co-authored with Seema Mattoo, Amy K. Foreman-Wykert, Jul...)
2005(Co-authored with Claressa E. Lucas, Ellen Brown, Tracy Po...)
2014(Co-authored with Shatavia S. Morrison, Jeffrey W. Mercant...)
2018(Co-authored with Jennafer A. P. Hamlin, Jeffrey W. Mercan...)
2024(Co-authored with Robert F. Benson, Ellen Brown, Nicole T....)
2009Kozak is a member of the American Society for Microbiology. Her professional activity has also included peer-review service for the CDC journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.
Kozak’s documented professional connections include the American Society for Microbiology/CDC postdoctoral program and research collaborations with CDC microbiologists and investigators studying Legionella and other bacterial pathogens. She has publicly discussed her experience with deep-vein thrombosis during graduate school and pregnancy in a CDC personal health-awareness feature.
