I am a graduate student in the microbiology and molecular genetics PhD program. I received my undergraduate degree in biology with a minor in biochemistry from the University of Delaware where I studied paracrine signaling interactions between metastatic prostate cancer and bone stromal cells in the lab of Robert Sikes.
I then received my masters in biomedical sciences from Rutgers University where I studied the role of SOX9 in lung cancer in the lab of Sharon Pine. I was also a visiting scientist at the American Museum of Natural History where, in the lab of Eunsoo Kim I studied the environmental conditions and molecular mechanisms that may have led to the initial endosymbiotic event that created the first photosynthetic Eukaryotes.
The overarching theme of my current research is to understand the degree and molecular mechanisms by which changes in gene regulation affect evolutionary processes such as adaptation.