I'm a molecular microbiologist with over a decade of experience in academic and industry/government labs.  My graduate training focused on understanding bacterial genetics and physiology, with the aim of developing novel treatments for infectious diseases. I worked on biophysical characterisation of Gram negative bacterial membranes during my Masters, then examined P. aerugionsa virulence factors and arginine metabolism in chronic wounds for my PhD thesis.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, and I became interested in developing diagnostics to better control infectious disease epidemics. I pursued this as a postdoc with SalivaDirect in the Wyllie-Weinberger lab at Yale School of Public Health, developing molecular assays for use with saliva. Following a transition to the Iwasaki lab, in the Department of Immunobiology, Yale School of Medicine, I am now focused on harnessing saliva and other biofluids to better understand post-viral illnesses such as Long-COVID, and find new biomarkers which can be used to diagnose and treat such diseases.

I love teaching; making complicated but fascinating things accessible to students. During graduate school, I volunteered as a STEM Ambassador, delivering microbiology workshops at primary and secondary schools, as well as gaining over 70 hours experience as a teaching assistant in undergraduate lab classes. Sharing my science with the public is important to me, and in 2022, I was shortlisted and later won the Bronze award for the STEM for Britain awards in 2022, where I had the exciting opportunity to talk to politicians at the Houses of Parliament about my PhD project.

In 2024, I taught the Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics lab 251L course as a Lecturer at Yale. We adapted an engaging, hands-on course, based on the UC Davis D2D curriculum and following in their footsteps, made our lab manual and teaching materials open to all.