Postdoctoral Fellow
I grew up in Spokane, WA before going on to complete my bachelor's in Biology and minor Environmental Science at nearby Eastern Washington University. There I worked with Dr. Andrea Castillo studying how a probiotic strain of bacteria (Lactococcus lactis) could be manipulated as a potential therapeutic. From there, I was a NIH-PREP postbaccalaureate researcher in the lab of Harmit Malik at Fred Hutch Cancer Center, where I studied Legionella paneumophila under then-postdoc Dr. Tera Levin. In graduate school, I studied how the human pathogen Staphylococcus aureus evolves to subvert host-encoded pressures but using a combination of laboratory evolution experiments and microbial genetics. I think of myself as an evolutionary biologist and microbiologist by training. As an IRACDA fellow I am excited to expand my molecular genetic skills by studying DNA repair mechanisms of Campylobacter jejuni in Kevin Lang's Lab.
Outside of lab,I love to bake, cook, try new restaurants and hang out with my husband Ben and dog River.
