News

November 2025

• Received approval by PhD committee to defend my thesis in early 2026!
• Submitted an exciting UPENN/CDC collaboration on household transmission of multidrug-resistant bacteria!

October 2025

• Scheduled last committee meeting before defense for November 19. Excited to identify a defense date and determine next steps.

• Exciting collaboration with James Boyko & Stephen A. Smith was submitted and posted on bioRxiv: Uncertainty in joint Ancestral State Reconstruction: Improving accuracy and biological interpretability of ancestral state prediction

• Presented at Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis Conference!

September 2025

• 1st PhD first-author manuscript was published in J Infectious Diseases: Phylogenetic Context of Antibiotic Resistance Provides Insights into the Dynamics of Resistance Emergence and Spread
• Selected to give my research update presentation during departmental PIBS recruiting week. Excited to share the (final!) update on my work to fellow students and recruits!

August 2025

• Abstract accepted as oral presentation at Midwest Microbial Pathogenesis Conference (October 3-5). Let me know if you’re planning on joining!

July 2025

• Awarded the Microbiology & Immunology department’s Frederick Novy award for student excellence in bacteriology research

• 1st PhD first-author manuscript was provisionally accepted

• 2nd PhD first-author manuscript was submitted and deposited on medRxiv: Identifying drivers of β-lactam/β-lactamase inhibitor resistance emergence and spread before their clinical deployment

June 2025

• Collaboration between excellent evolutionary biologists and clinicians deposited on medRxiv: Phylogenetic context of antibiotic resistance provides insights into the dynamics of resistance emergence and spread

May 2025

• Collaboration with experimental microbiologists published at mBio: Klebsiella pneumoniae evolution in the gut leads to spontaneous capsule loss and decreased virulence potential

July 2024

• Awarded a two-year NIH F31 fellowship by the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious Diseases: Genome-driven identification of patient and bacterial drivers of resistance to novel beta-lactam/beta-lactamase

June 2024

• Got married!

November 2022

• Published a commentary on the importance of improving health education in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: Health education after COVID-19: A time to revisit, revamp, and revitalize?

August 2021

• Passed qualifying exam

• Published an important commentary that challenged the separation of praise in faith from medical practices: From a culture of blame to a culture of grace: A letter in reply to Papadakis

March 2021

• Joined Dr. Evan Snitkin’s laboratory for thesis work
• Awarded a two-year NIH T32 spot on the Genome Science Training Program

October 2020

• Awarded the Society of Healthcare Epidemiology of America’s Yoshikawa-High award for best long-term care abstract at IDWeek 2020

August 2020

• Started PhD in Microbiology & Immunology at University of Michigan

Summer 2020

• Completed a Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR) Summer Immersion Program under mentorship of Dr Payal K Patel. Our work on how high-risk antibiotic exposures in hospitals influence nursing home multidrug-resistant organism epidemiology was published inJAMA Network Open.

April 2020

• Graduated with MPH in Hospital & Molecular Epidemiology from University of Michigan School of Public Health