Scientist, Janssen Pharmaceuticals
hailing from
Boston, MA
Undergraduate
B.S. in Chemistry with Concentration in Biochemistry and Minor in Biology from Wake Forest University in North Carolina.
Ph.D. Studies
2015-2020
Title of Ph.D. Dissertation
Application and Development of Mass Spectrometry Technologies to Enable Biological Investigations.
Research Experience
While at Wake Forest I spent two years working in a synthetic organic lab under Ulrich Bierbach. The work focused on making derivatives of the oncology drug cisplatin with novel DNA cross-linking functionality. After school I worked at Warp Drive Bio, a start-up company focused on mining genome space for novel medicinal natural products. I was responsible for the mass-guided purification and structure elucidation of key leads.
“I chose the Coon lab because I had always been interested in mass spectrometry, particularly in what it can afford to biological investigation.”
Why University of Wisconsin and the Coon lab?
I always knew that I was going to come back to higher education after getting some work experience. UW just has the right environment for me. It pushes collaborative research, so many labs across campus are open to collaboration or mentoring, which is not something you find at every institution. The stature of the program was also attractive; the institution has a rich history of scientific contribution including vitamin D and warfarin. I chose the Coon lab because I had always been interested in mass spectrometry, particularly in what it can afford to biological investigation.
Lab Projects
The big picture of my work is biological investigation powered by mass spectrometry. Within that I worked on three main projects: the kinetics of protein turnover in distinct mouse tissues, proteogenomic profiling of organisms with lesser studied genome expression, and the refinement of sample handling techniques for recalcitrant sample types.
