My scientific background is somewhat unorthodox and disciplinarily very diverse. Internships are rare for community college students, but while at Santa Barbara I was able to do a research project at UC-Santa Barbara in marine biology. At Humboldt State, while I was becoming part of the chemistry community there, I also went outside the department to do research in bird migration and conservation. Later, as I was starting to think about going to graduate school, I worked in Josh Smith’s lab on organic synthesis and semi-conductors. To gain more experience with more resources, I applied to nationwide summer research programs for undergraduates and ended up in the Kiessling group at UW-Madison.

After my summer in the Kiessling group at UW-Madison, I felt certain about going to UW-Madison for graduate research—that it would fit me and work for me. As a first-generation college student deciding to go to grad school, it was important to me that I had experienced being part of the research community there. I’m grateful that it worked out this way, because I’m excited and passionate about my research—it’s part of how I think and my identity.

My current research project focuses on understanding the role the microbiota plays within mammalian metabolism. Specifically, I am interested in developing high-throughput methods to quantitatively profile metabolites found in mouse plasma and digestive cecum. Understanding how small molecule metabolites produced by, modified, and metabolized within genetically unique mice will provide a means to correlate genetic information to phenotype.