Personal Statement

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My interest in microbiology began unexpectedly during my year-long AmeriCorps service (following my BA in Communications at the University of Iowa), where I was introduced to the role fungi play in ecosystem health through habitat restoration in the Pacific Northwest. This experience piqued my curiosity about the critical functions performed by microbes and led me to pivot toward scientific research. To further my understanding, I took coursework at the University of Washington, eventually leading to my acceptance as a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

During my doctoral research in the lab of Jae-Hyuk Yu, PhD, I studied Aspergillus spp. and the metabolism of benzo(a)pyrene, contributing to our understanding of fungal bioremediation. Our findings shed light on the specific genes and regulatory networks necessary for toxin degradation. We also observed that nutrient environment impacts expression of these networks, which has implications for effective bioremediation strategies. This finding inspired me to explore more complex systems where microbes interact with their environment and with each other.

As a postdoc (now a research scientist) in the lab of Ophelia Venturelli, PhD, at UW-Madison, I use high-throughput experimentation, computational modeling, gnotobiotic mice, and metatranscriptomics to explore how the chemical complexity of dietary fibers affects the stability and metabolic function of communities of human gut microbiota. Understanding these interactions is crucial for unraveling how diet influences gut health and disease, particularly in the context of microbiome-related disorders.

My future research aims to map the impact of bacteria-fungi interactions on fungal virulence, drug resistance, and community ecology in the infant gut. I plan to combine my expertise in fungal biology and microbial systems to quantitatively model these interspecies interactions. Ultimately, I aim to build a research lab that advances our understanding of gut microbiota and informs novel therapeutic strategies for microbiome-related diseases.