CV

Education

University of California Berkeley, PhD in Physics (May 2022)

Dissertation: Empirical tools for studying genetic drift in microbial populations
Committee: Oskar Hallatschek (chair), Hernan G. Garcia, Yun S. Song, Matthew F. Traxler
Abstract/PDF

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, B.S. in Physics (2015)

Dissertation: Characterization of a two-color magneto-optical trap for a spin-squeezed optical lattice clock
Advisor: Vladan Vuletic
Thesis

Rock Bridge High School, Columbia, MO (2011)

Research

Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, Postdoctoral Fellow, 2022-present

• Antigenic evolution in Neisseria gonorrhoeae
• Equity in wastewater-based epidemiology

Advisor: Yonatan Grad

University of California Berkeley, PhD in Physics, 2016-2022

• Statistical inference of genetic drift from time-series genomic data
• Spatial structure and genetic drift in microbial populations

Advisor: Oskar Hallatschek

One Health Trust, National Science Policy Network SciPol Scholar in Residence, January 2022
Formerly the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics, and Policy

Literature review, drafting, and editing for the WHO Reports on National Actiona Plans for Antimicrobial Resistance in Kenya, Malawi, and Mali

Advisors: Erta Kalanxhi and Jessica Craig

University of California Berkeley, Spring 2017

As a graduate rotation student, I built a laser-based autofocus system for a new stroboscopic scattering microscope. The autofocusing setup allowed observations on the microscope to be made on both short and long timescales and the setup was used for studying exciton migration in novel materials.

Advisor: Naomi Ginsberg

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013-2015

For my undergraduate thesis, I wrote simulations to characterize atomic trajectories in a two-color (i.e. dual-wavelength) magneto-optical trap. The two-color scheme allowed us to cool and trap atoms at lower magnetic field strengths, and this setup was incorporated into a broader experiment to create a spin-squeezed atomic clock. I also designed and implemented a laser frequency stabilization setup using optical fiber cavity feedback, performed computer simulations to optimize imaging resolution, and constructed electronic control circuits.

Advisors: Vladan Vuletic, Boris Braverman, Akio Kawasaki, Dorian Gangloff, Alexei Bylinskii

Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich, Germany, Summer 2014

As a summer intern through the MISTI program at MIT, I designed and implementated a stable laser setup with optical feedback.

Advisors: Simon Folling and Immanuel Bloch

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2012-2013

A major open question in astrophysics is how the elements were formed in the early universe. Working with Dr. Anna Frebel, I collected spectroscopic data of old stars using the Magellan Telescopes in Chile and analyzed the spectra using peak-fitting software to quantify elemental abundances. We discovered a star with very low abundances of the heavy elements, which helped to constrain the yields in a known process (r-process) that gives rise to these elements.

Advisor: Anna Frebel

Institute Neel, CNRS, Grenoble, France, Summer 2012

As a summer intern through the MISTI program at MIT, I performed measurements of properties of frustrated magnetic materials with SQUID magnetometry.

Advisors: Carley Paulsen and Elsa Lhotel

Awards & Fellowships

• American Sexually Transmitted Diseases Association Summer Fellowship, 2024
• Summer Institutes in Statistics and Modeling in Infectious Diseases Scholarship, 2023
• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, 2016-2021
• UC Berkeley Chancellor’s Fellowship, 2017-2019
• UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly Travel Grant, 2019
• UC Berkeley Academic Opportunity Fund, 2019
• UC Berkeley Graduate Division Conference Travel Grant, 2017 and 2018
• UC Berkeley Microbiology Student Symposium Best Graduate Student Poster, 2018
• Joel Matthew Orloff Award in service to the MIT Physics Department, 2015
• MIT IDEAS Social Innovation Challenge Award, 2015
• MIT Public Service Center Fellowship, 2015
• Illinois Distinguished Fellowship, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2015
• MIT John P. Huchra Memorial Fund Recipient, funding to observe at Magellan telescopes in Chile, January 2013
• Rabi Scholars, Columbia University, 2011 (declined)
• National Merit Scholar, 2011
• Presidential Scholar Finalist, 2011
• Siemens Competition Regional Finalist, 2009

Talks

Invited Talks

• Infectious Diseases Consortium, January 2024, Boston, MA. Whole genome long-read sequencing to resolve antigenic variation in Neisseria gonorrhoeae.
• National Academies Virtual Meeting on Wastewater Surveillance Sampling: Addressing Equity and Optimizing Design, September 2023, virtual. Assessment of sewer connectivity in the United States and its implications for equity in wastewater-based epidemiology.
• MIT Physics of Living Systems Seminar, October 2022, Cambridge, MA. Inferring genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission.

Contributed Talks

• Epidemics, Bologna, Italy, November 2023. Lineage frequency time series reveal elevated levels of genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England.
• Bay Area Population Genomics XIX, Stanford University, April 2022. Lineage frequency time series reveal elevated levels of genetic drift in SARS-CoV-2 transmission in England.
• Bay Area Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases conference, February 2022, virtual. SARS-CoV-2 population heterogeneity and measurement noise in England.
• UC Berkeley Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases seminar, October 2021, virtual. SARS-CoV-2 lineage frequency fluctuations show evidence of elevated levels of genetic drift in transmission dynamics.
• UC Berkeley Center for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics Seminar, September 2021, virtual. SARS-CoV-2 effective population size over time and space.
• UC Berkeley Center for Theoretical Evolutionary Genomics Seminar, November 2020, virtual. Evolution of genetic drift in E. coli.
• Microbial Ecology and Evolution Virtual Conference, August 2020. The local mutational landscape of demographic noise in microbial range expansions.
• Evolutionary and Ecological Systems Biology Seminar, August 2020, virtual. The local mutational landscape of demographic noise in microbial range expansions.
• American Physical Society March Meeting, March 2018, Los Angeles, CA. Visualizing evolutionary forces with non-invasive spatial lineage tracking.
• Physics Department Graduate Student Seminar, February 2017, UC Berkeley. Modeling biological evolution in self-organizing microbial colonies.
• UC Berkeley Biophysics Program Retreat, October 2017, Tomales Bay, CA. Mechanical interactions in microbial biofilms and its effect on evolution.
• American Society for Engineering Education International Forum, June 2017, Columbus OH. Oral and poster presentations. Best poster award. Kepler Tech Lab: Developing an affordable skills-based engineering lab course in Rwanda.
• Physics Department Graduate Student Seminar, February 2017, UC Berkeley. Exploring noise in bacterial biofilm growth.

Research mentorship

Graduate students

• 2020-2021, Aditya Prasad, UC Berkeley Physics PhD Program (entered 2019)

Rotation students

• 2023, Eric Vickers, Harvard Biological Sciences in Public Health PhD Program (entered 2023)

Undergraduate students

• 2022-2023, Rachelle Smith, UC Berkeley Plant and Microbial Biology, Class of 2023
• 2020-2021, Kristen Lok, UC Berkeley Bioengineering, Class of 2023
• 2020-2021, Can Goksal, UC Berkeley Molecular and Cell Biology, Class of 2021
• 2019-2020, Megan Sousa, UC Berkeley Linguistics and Public Health, Class of 2021
  • Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow, 2020
  • Berkeley Physics Undergraduate Research Scholars Program, Spring 2020
• 2018-2019, Annie Cheng, UC Berkeley Bioengineering, Class of 2019

Teaching

• Hallatschek Lab Summer Undergraduate Journal Club, Summer 2020.
• Workshop Leader for UC Berkeley Conference for First Time Graduate Student Instructors in the Physical Sciences, Fall 2019
  • Organized and led an interactive workshop for 30 participants on effective teaching strategies
• Graduate Student Instructor, UC Berkeley, Principles of Molecular Biophysics, Spring 2017
  • Designed and led weekly discussion sessions, graded assignments, held office hours, assisted in designing homework and exam questions.
• Kepler Tech Lab, Kigali, Rwanda, 2015-2016
  • Developed high-school level curricula, taught courses, facilitated professional development sessions with teachers.
• Nuvu Labs, Cambridge, MA, May 2015
  • Developed and taught a two-week hands-on module on building science equipment to middle schoolers.
• Cambridge Science Festival, Cambridge, MA, 2015
  • Taught hands-on relativity demos to 7th grade students.
• MIT Junior Lab Undergraduate Teaching Assistant, Fall 2014
  • Assisted in answering questions from third year physics undergraduates on experimental setup, data analysis, and presentations.
• MIT Italy Global Teaching Labs, Crema, Italy, Jan. 2014
  • Designed and taught a hands-on electrodynamics and magnetism course for a total of three hundred 4th and 5th year Italian high school students in English.
• MIT Educational Studies Program, Summer 2013
  • Prepared and taught a sequence of 7 lecture and seminar classes on quantum mechanics to ten 10-12th graders.

Leadership and Service

• Facilitator for the 11th and 12th Annual Workshops to Increase Diversity in Mathematical Modeling and Public Health hosted by CCDD and MIDAS, March 27-28, 2023 and March 4-5, 2024
• UC Berkeley Physics Department 1st Year Grad Mentor Buddy, 2018-2022
• UC Berkeley Physics Department Colloquium Committee Student Representative, 2020-2021
• UC Berkeley Physics Department Faculty Search Committee Student Member, 2019
• Lab tours for Berkeley Connect Course, 2017, 2020
• UC Berkeley Society of Womxn in the Physical Sciences, 2016-present
  • Treasurer, 2019-2020
    • Wrote budget requests, managed spending, interfaced with financial analyst
  • Head coordinator, 2018-2019
    • Managed a 10-person coordinator board in planning monthly events to promote women in physical science.
    • Organized discussions over tea with visiting female professors and postdocs in the physics department
  • Outreach coordinator, 2017-2018
    • Organized a research shadow day for 10 local high school students.
    • Organized a graduate school information panel for 30 undergraduates.
• MIT Undergraduate Women in Physics, 2011-2015
  • President 2014-2015, Vice President 2013-2014
  • Planned social, educational, and outreach activities for a group of 25 undergraduate women physics majors.
  • Organized PhysEx, an annual event for high school students to explore physics at MIT. (physicsforgirls.wordpress.com)

Peer Review

Communications Medicine, Theoretical Biology

Skills

• Computational: genomics, high performance computing, mathematical modeling, statistical inference, image analysis
• Experimental: microscopy, microbiology wet lab, microfluidics
• Software: python, bash, MATLAB, LaTeX
• Foreign Language: Chinese (conversational), French (intermediate), German (intermediate)