I most recently worked within two labs that study stem cells in the skin (Valentina Greco’s lab) and epigenetics in the germline (Valerie Reinke’s lab). I wrote grants, mentored trainees through writing manuscripts, and contributed to various aspects of lab organization like the lab websites and inclusive academia journal clubs.
Dr. Valerie Reinke's lab studies genome organization and gene regulation, primarily using the C. elegans germline as a model system. They have mapped the binding sites of hundreds of transcription factors around the genome, and study how these factors and the chromatin environment direct proper tissue-specific gene expression.
Dr. Valentina Greco’s lab uses two-photon live imaging to track skin cells in mice as they sleep - revisiting the same cells and watching how they behave over hours, days, or even months. They can also visualize and manipulate molecular events like signaling pathway activation and metabolism to understand how skin stem cells coordinate with one another and respond to things like oncogenic mutations and injury. I was particularly involved in a project investigating how chromatin compaction and transcriptional dynamics change during epidermal stem cell differentiation.
Dr. Valentina Greco’s lab uses two-photon live imaging to track skin cells in mice as they sleep - revisiting the same cells and watching how they behave over hours, days, or even months. They can also visualize and manipulate molecular events like signaling pathway activation and metabolism to understand how skin stem cells coordinate with one another and respond to things like oncogenic mutations and injury. I was particularly involved in a project investigating how chromatin compaction and transcriptional dynamics change during epidermal stem cell differentiation.
My PhD research focused on the developmental roles for small noncoding RNAs in the germline – the tissue that produces eggs in female and sperm in males.
I found that in the fruit fly Drosophila, a particular class of small noncoding RNAs, piRNAs, and their protein partner, Piwi, are maternally deposited into the embryo to direct germline development. Surprisingly, maternal Piwi and piRNAs were important for female germline development but not male germline development – in the female germline, we think piRNAs prevent the expression of male germline genes, ultimately ensuring that the adult female fly goes on to be fertile, developing healthy eggs and laying embryos of her own. (PMID: 34142134)
Alongside this major PhD project, my advisor, Dr. Haifan Lin, and I mentored undergraduate Gina Zhu as she researched another way Piwi regulates the fruit fly ovary. She discovered that Piwi and piRNAs in the cells that surround the ovary ensure organized, progressive egg development. We hypothesize that Piwi influences signaling crosstalk between somatic and germline cells to promote proper egg development. (PMID: 33274324 & PMID: 33274329)
During a post-baccalaureate fellowship at the NIH, I used structural biology and biochemistry to study RNA binding proteins.
This year-long project in Dr. Traci Hall's lab is what made me fall in love with RNA and develop a deep appreciation for the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of biochemical approaches. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jun Zhang, I studied two relatively unknown proteins that direct processing of the structural RNAs that build the ribosome - a massive protein-RNA complex that facilitates the translation of all proteins in a cell. (PMID: 27789691)
As an undergraduate, I researched how plants use regulated protein degradation to respond to stressful environments.
I had loved science abstractly for many years, but this research experience gave me the ability to picture myself as a scientist for the first time. In Dr. Bryan Thines' lab, I and a group of other undergraduates took a genomics approach to discover which F-box proteins - which tell a cell's protein degradation system which proteins to target - are up-regulated in different stress conditions in the plant Arabidopsis. We found many such F-box proteins, and I started the genetic and phenotypic characterization of one in particular, now called FBS1, which is involved in the cold stress response and has become a major research area of the Thines lab. (PMID: 28716048)
