In a natural habitat, an animal is never truly isolated; from the moment it leaves the womb/egg/cyst — the most sterile environment it will ever inhabit — it comes into contact with other organisms. It was against this backdrop of continuous contact that life evolved. Perhaps, then, it should come as no surprise that symbioses are so numerous. What interests me are the molecular interactions between symbiotic organisms, and their evolutionary implications, in a genomic context.

I am currently transitioning from my PhD at the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University where I worked under Dr. Colleen Cavanaugh to an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship under Dr. Ralph Isberg at Tufts Medical Center. I am funded, in collaboration with Dr. Seth Bordenstein, to investigate the molecular interactions between the parasite Wolbachia and its insect hosts.