June 2024 - Present
Finnish Institute of Molecular Medicine (FIMM)
Complex Disease Genetics group
As a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow, I am completing a secondment and short term reserach stays at FIMM supervised by Professor Samuli Ripatti, Director of FIMM. As an official FIMM Visiting Researcher, I use the FinnGen data to complement analyses from the HUNT Study in Norway. Read more
October 2021 - Present Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Department of Public Health and Nursing (ISM)
As a postdoctoral fellow in the HUNT Center for Clinical and Molecular Epidemiology (formerly the K.G. Jebsen Center for Genetic Epidemiology), I am performing research under the mentorship of Professor Kristian Hveem. Beginning in 2021 I am a funded by the INTERVENE project. This is an international effort funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme to harmonize and utilize biobanks to prevent common diseases. I began my Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship in January 2024. This launched my ProtectHearts project aiming to identify proteomic predictors of heart disease, especially for women and the young. Read more
May 2016 - September 2021 University of Michigan
Department of Internal Medicine, Department of Human Genetics, and Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics
I joined the lab of Dr. Cristen Willer as a rotation student in May 2016. I began my dissertation work in September of 2016. Broadly, I studied the genetics of cardiometabolic diseases including type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease. My research projects ranged from the study of Mendelian disease in Thoracic Aortic Dissection patients from the University of Michigan Cardiac Health Improvement Project to the study of polygenic diseases in large population scale biobanks such as the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study and the UK Biobank. My research contributed to the development of precision health strategies by developing and employing computational tools to analyze big data in the form of EHR-linked biobanks with genetic data. Read more
September 2016 - August 2021 University of Michigan
Department of Biostatistics, Center for Statistical Genetics
I rotated with Dr. Boehnke and Dr. Laura Scott August 2015-February 2016 as a continuation of my work with the Finland-United States Investigation of NIDDM (FUSION) Project from my post-baccalaureate career. I was co-mentored by Dr. Mike Boehnke and Dr. Cristen Willer for my dissertation research. Read more
March - April 2016
University of Michigan
Department of Human Genetics, Life Sciences Institute
As a rotation student in the David Ginsburg Laboratory I used bacteriophage display and high throughput sequencing to explore hemostatic protease biochemistry. Read more
August 2013 - August 2015
National Institutes of Health, National Human Genome Research Institute
Medical Genomics and Metabolic Genetics Branch
I worked as a Postbaccalaureate IRTA trainee in the lab of Dr. Francis Collins in the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. I worked under the mentorship of Dr. Stephen Parker, and used my bioinformatics skill set to perform integrative analyses using RNA-seq, ChIP-seq, genotypes, and chromatin state data to identify regions involved in Type 2 Diabetes susceptibility. The Collins lab is particularly interested in non-coding regions where the majority of Genome Wide Association Study loci for T2D and related traits are located. Other NHGRI researchers and I were also highlighed by LabTV in their effort to encourage high sschool and undergraduate students to explore careers in biomedical research. Read more
June 2008 - May 2013
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Biology Department
I worked as a high school volunteer, and later, an undergraduate research assistant in the Corbin Jones Laboratory from summer 2008 until my graduation from UNC-CH in May 2013. My undergraduate research experience includes a co-authored publication, Mechanosensation across and within Drosophila species. In addition, I conducted research for my honors thesis, “Evolutionary Development of Gain-of-Function Stripes in Z. indianus,” in the Jones lab. You can listen to an audio recording of my honors thesis presented on March 22, 2013. Read more