I’m from Atlanta, GA and went to Georgia Tech majoring in Biochemistry. During college, I was involved in cancer drug development and cardiac tissue engineering research. After graduating in 2016, I worked for a few years at the NIH via the post-baccalaureate research program. At NIH I studied a rare primary immunodeficiency which dysregulates magnesium homeostasis in T cells and demonstrated how specific T cell receptor associated kinases are dependent on physiological Mg2+ concentrations to function optimally. I joined the MD/PhD program at Columbia in Fall 2019.

I am currently a graduate student in Peter Sims’s lab working on slice culture models of human lymph nodes to study basic questions in human immunology like T-cell activation/signaling and vaccination in lymphoid tissues. I utilize single cell RNA-seq approaches coupled with surface protein phenotyping (CITE-seq) along with conventional immunological assays and imaging modalities to study these immunological questions. We aim to define a reference T cell activation signature in healthy human tissue and use that as a baseline to compare against for disease and to better understand early events in the vaccination response.

In my free time I enjoy discovering and reading in many of NYC’s coffee shops/roasters, exploring the diverse food scene, or spending time outdoors (Central and Riverside Parks, hiking upstate).