I am a deeply curious individual with a passion for discovering and describing the mechanisms shaping the diverse ecosystems that have surrounded me, visible or invisible, throughout my life. My scientific interests include population genetics, evolution, ecology, genomics, and the role of stochastic processes in ecosystem dynamics.
The impact of disturbances on microbial community evolution and composition over time
Microbiology has only scratched the surface in describing the selective forces which shape microbial communities over time. I am passionate about defining the selective forces behind functional adaptation events and community composition shifts observable at both the population and genomic levels, especially when these adaptations and compositional changes are induced by shifts in selection after disturbances or anthropogenic climate change. I am fascinated by the evolutionary and compositional fingerprints left on microbial communities which identify the changes in selection occurring in a post-disturbance regime, and whether these changes in selection predict (or don’t predict!) the continual compositional and stability of a microbial community.
- Read about my Senior Integrative Exercise at Carleton, where I discovered my excitement for examining selective pressure surrounding disturbances
- My work with Dr. Rika Anderson at Carleton College explores how evolutionary patterns at the genome level indicate the presence of environmental selection.
- My analysis of the human gut in IBD examines the complex gut community’s shifts after the onset of disease.
Biogeography, community assembly, and how organisms move around
The question of community assembly is essential to ecology: why are certain species in certain places? I am intrigued by the interplay between deterministic and stochastic effects that result in an organism’s introduction to a new environment or population as a candidate for colonization or reproduction, and determine its success once introduced. I am particularly interested in identifying how deterministically assembled communities and populations evolve differently from stochastically assembled ones, and what characteristics these these communities and populations have over time. I think that enumerating the specific environmental, behavioral, and genetic conditions which enable or disrupt colonization and movement between populations and environments can provide insight into shifts in composition and community over time, such as when ecosystems, populations, or even specific loci transition between stable states.
- I discussed the balance of deterministic and stochastic factors influencing community assembly in hydrothermal vents during my Senior Integrative Exercise at Carleton.
Bioinformatics and computational biology platform development
High-quality biological data - DNA sequencing or otherwise - has never been more inexpensive or abundant. I believe that the computation tools and infrastructure available to scientists for data processing, analysis, and reproducibility are critical elements of modern biology. As data volume and analysis complexity continue to increase, my interest in computation tools and techniques that visualize large volumes of biological data have been joined by a fascination with HPC and bioinformatics pipeline infrastructure. In particular, I am interested in contributing to projects that facilitate access to HPC tools and reduce usability barriers in HPC environments used for biological data processing, use computational tools to model ecological dynamics, and enable robust, reproducible science.
- One of my first research experiences was on a tool to enable biological data visualization in cancer phylogenies in the Oesper Lab at Carleton.
- I’ve spent thousands of hours working in HPC environments during my time at Finch Therapeutics. Read more here.
Other interests
Outside of science
- Teacher, passionate about effective science communication
- [Fisherman] (/background-interests/#fishing-and-the-outdoors)
- Runner, hiker, biker