Research Interests
I am interested in how bacteria influence early life development of the immune system in animals and people. My love for host-microbe interactions began during an undergrad research semester at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, MA, where I worked with Dr. Ned Ruby studying the squid symbiont Vibrio fischeri. I completed my masters with Dr. Ruby in Hawaii, and then moved to NC with my family to do my PhD with Dr. Miriam Braunstein at UNC Chapel Hill studying protein secretion in Mycobacterium tuberculosis. After a finishing a postdoc with Dr. Joe St. Geme and Dr. Patrick Seed examining the effect of early life exposure to bacteria on development of allergy and asthma, I am now a research associate in the Rawls lab. I work with Dr. Rawls and a group of scientists and clinicians at Duke and Northwestern University studying gut bacteria that may contribute to obesity in adolescents.