I started my research career with a B.S. in Biology from Husson University in Maine, after which I worked for 3 years as a research assistant for Dr. Yanyan Li’s nutrition lab at Husson. After this stretch, I started an M.S. at the University of Maine in Dr. Suzanne Ishaq’s microbiology lab, working on the intersection between nutrition and the gut microbiome, and took this same subject on to my PhD. in microbiology, which I completed in May 2026.

During the course of my MS and PhD, I worked on a project investigating the impacts of dietary therapeutics on early life microbiomes and inflammation, and through this project became interested in maternal and infant microbiomes. This interest ultimately led me to attend a talk about early life microbiomes by Dr. Lindsay Hall at the Internation Society for Microbial Ecology conference in 2024, and eventually to my joining her lab in May 2026 as a postdoc! My interests still lie with early life microbiomes, and my projects involve investigating how nutrition shapes maternal and early life immune and microbial development.