I was always interested in science. And, like many I think, I was interested in all kinds of scientific fields. When I was trying to decide what is was I wanted to study in college, I decided not on a discipline of science, but on a problem that I wanted to solve. That desire brought me to Tufts University, and the field of biomedical engineering. What I wanted, fresh out of high school, was to grow synthetic organs. It seemed a worthy goal to pursue, with the chance to explore and create in a cutting-edge field. And it was, but it was not for me. I left Tufts in 2016, disheartened and unsure where to do next.

In the meantime, I started volunteering my time at the Yale Peabody museum. As a child, I had loved exploring that place, and it appealed to me to spend my time there. I worked in the Paleobotany collections working for Dr. Wu, sorting through the massive archive of fossils from around the world that dated back to the Cretaseous, Jurassic, Triassic, and Permian Periods. It was fun, and so in the future I decided to continue studying Archaeology. In 2017, I started taking classes at Southern Connecticut State University.

The first class I took was Microbiology. And I got hooked. I decided to do a biotechnology major, a new program spearheaded by my advisor, Dr. Nicholas Edgington. I participated in the Small World (now Tiny Earth) Initiative, trying to isolate bacteria that are antibiotic producers. I was not successful, but I enjoyed the experience immensely, and that led me to apply for an internship at the Jackson Laboratory. I fall 2018 I joined the lab of Dr. Julia Oh, a PI investigating the human microbiome. Working with Elizabeth Fleming, B.S, we worked on isolating bacteria from clinical samples of chronic fatigue syndrome patients, looking for differences in activation of immune cells, particularly MAIT and AhR.

In fall of 2019 I also joined the SEA-PHAGES program, and discovered a novel bacteriophage, Cumula, which infects Microbacterium foliorum. I helped annotate the genome for the phage Stromboli, and presented our findings at the annual SEA-PHAGES conference at HHMI. I also discovered the phage Hoyt, which is the second phage to be found that infects the host Microbacterium nematophilum.

In Fall 2020, I graduated from Southern with a B.S. in Biotechnology, along with three minors in Chemistry, Mathematics, and Anthropology. The last came as a surprise. I took a few basic anthropology classes with Dr. Kathleen Skoczen, which were so fun I joined her in the summer of 2018 in England on an archaeological dig for the Poulton Research Project. I excavated human remains from a medieval Chester graveyard, in a complex archaeological landscape with features including Neolithic huts and a Roman encampment. Later that summer I also joined excavations in East Rock, CT in a Native American tool-making site, and at the 17th-century Henry Whitfield House in Guilford, CT.

At the beginning of 2020, I joined the lab as a permanent member. I study the human microbiome and its effects on immune cell activation in MECFS, Lung Cancer, and Icthyosis patients.