since 2023 - PhD Candidate in Ramundo Group

2020-2023 - Herbicide Discovery Senior Research Scientist at Syngenta UK 

2018 - Summer Research Fellow at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

2017-2020 BA in Biological Sciences at University of Oxford

Discovery of novel cpUPR signaling components in land plants

I am exploring the conservation of a retrograde signaling pathway aimed at restoring chloroplast protein homeostasis from algae in land plants. My work currently focusses on generating novel tools to specifically activate this signaling pathway and identify genes that are selectively upregulated upon the onset of chloroplast proteotoxic stress.

Molecular and functional characterization of the Plastid-Encoded RNA Polymerase in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

I am also interested in the evolution of Plastid-Encoded RNA polymerase - a eubacterial type RNA polymerase that is responsible for transcription of chloroplast-encoded genes in both land plants and algae. In particular, I am interested in the functional characterization of the eukaryotic-type proteins that our lab has recently discovered to be associated with this polymerase in the model organism Chlamydomonas reinhardtii.

My interest in Plant Biology began during a research fellowship I conducted in the Long lab at the University of Urbana-Champaign in the summer of 2018. Here, I worked with sorghum and maize lines with genetically modified photosynthetic traits and stomatal characteristics, which really impressed on me the real impact plant science can have in the field. Since then, I have been highly interested in photosynthesis and the mechanisms which prevent overactivation of the photosynthetic machinery from leading to cellular damage, as well as chloroplast biology more generally.