About Me

I was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. I first got excited about science all the way back in sixth grade when our teacher had us look at protists called "stentors" under a microscope. It blew my mind that something small enough to be invisible to the naked eye could could still be a complex, moving, living creature! Ever since, I've been obsessed with learning more about the microscopic world and helping other people appreciate how wonderful it is!

In 2013, I enrolled at the University of Utah as a Biology major. I will forever be indebted to Dr. Nels Elde, who let me join his lab as a very dopey freshman and get started on my research career. In the Elde Lab, I was mentored by Dr. Matthew Barber, who taught me the basics of lab work and molecular biology, and guided me in my undergraduate research on innate immune proteins. During my sophomore year at The U, I had the good fortune to take a class called "Innovation Roadmap," which helped me discover my passion for education. That class led me to connect with Dr. Louisa Stark at the Genetic Science Learning Center, who very kindly let me work with and learn from her incredibly skilled team. The GSLC gave me the space to (very clumsily) learn about science education and build a handful of learning activities including an online Stroop Test, a Natural Selection Simulator, and a video game where players navigate a microbial environment as a bacterium.

I graduated in 2017 with an Honors Degree in Biology and a minor in Computer Science. Unsure if I should pursue my passion for science or education next, I applied to various Microbiology PhD programs and Education Master's programs, assuming fate would decide for me. However fate decided to pass the buck back to me and I was offered admission to both the University of Washington's Microbiology PhD program and Harvard University's Master's program in education. Fortunately, UW was much more accommodating than I deserved, and they let me defer my enrollment for a year while I earned my Master's. Studying education was an exciting change of pace for me. I had the opportunity to immerse myself in the social sciences where I learned qualitative research methods, critical social theory, and educational best-practices. I was in the Technology, Innovation, and Education program at Harvard, which allowed me to focus on how we can leverage new technologies to maximize student learning, such as Augmented Reality. Although it's less flashy than AR, I'm most proud of the Digital Epidemiological Case Study I built during my Master's program. The case study places students in the role of CDC Epidemic Intelligence Service officers and uses multiple approaches to increase intrinsic motivation: pairing students up and giving them separate, but complimentary roles so they are motivated to help one another, the mystery of which pathogen is causing the food-borne outbreak and where it's coming from, and the authenticity of placing scientific concepts in a real-world and emotionally-relevant context.

After finishing my Ed.M. degree, I started my PhD in Dr. David Fredricks's Lab. Dr. Fredricks has been a spectacular mentor, giving me all the guidance I needed along with enough freedom to explore topics I'm really passionate about. In his lab, I've used metagenomics and metaproteomics to study Bacterial Vaginosis, an extremely common condition of the vaginal microbiota where diverse, (arguably) pathogenic bacteria outgrow beneficial lactobacilli. My early research focused on computational methods to maximize data output from metaproteomic analysis. Subsequently, we've applied those methods and uncovered a number of novel metabolic pathways used by different Bacterial Vaginosis-associated bacteria which may be targets for future therapeutics.

Dr. Fredricks has also been very supportive of my interest in education. In addition to various volunteering opportunities I've pursued through Fred Hutch Cancer Center's SciEd outreach program and local Seattle schools, he let me take a summer to work at the University of Washington's Robinson Center for Young Scholars. There, I worked as a microbiology instructor in the Summer Stretch program — an intensive 4-week summer course for 7th - 10th grade students. Summer Stretch was a spectacular opportunity. I had a huge amount of freedom to shape the course, resources and laboratory space to include hands-on activities, and two TA's to help with grading and class management. At the same time, the course presented some challenges. I had to teach relatively young students, all from different schools and educational/socioeconomic backgrounds, in a very truncated timeframe. It was hectic to say the least, but we were very successful. I added a number of new elements to the course including a "Cool Microbes" presentation assignment, a GFP plasmid transformation lab experiment, and many of the learning activities I had previously built at the GSLC and Harvard. The students also learned a ton, going from chemistry basics on the first day to next generation DNA sequencing by the end of the course. I enjoyed learning about education theory at Harvard, but it was no substitute for getting tossed into a class of 14 year-olds who would rebel if I didn't include a ton of active learning!

In between everything else, I manage to find plenty of time for fun. I've been the Dungeon Master for my Seattle D&D group going on 6 years, I'm bad at the electric bass but I love playing it, and I like to put my microbiology skills to good use by homebrewing beer and kombucha. I love anything and everything about the water — swimming, paddleboarding, and SCUBA diving. And I've just recently started taking advantage of the Pacific Northwest's mycological riches with some mushroom foraging. See me with an absolutely gorgeous Cortinarius violaceus at the top of this page!