I am the Microbiome Research Leader at the Quadram Institute Bioscience (QIB), and I’m also a Wellcome Trust Investigator.

My team studies early life gut microbiota-host interactions with a particular focus on Bifidobacterium.

I obtained a BSc in Microbiology from the University of Glasgow (1999-2003), then a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Cambridge (Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, 2003-2007), and was a postdoctoral fellow at University College Cork, Ireland (APC Microbiome Institute, 2007-2011).

I returned to the UK end of 2011 to take up my first independent post as a Senior Lecturer at the University of East Anglia before moving to QIB end of 2015.