Research Experience

While at Oregon and during an internship at MedImmune, LLC. my research spanned the fields of synthetic organic chemistry, phytopathology, molecular biology, and genetics. During my undergraduate years, my interests shifted toward disease prevention and treatment through chemical techniques, while my respect for instrumentation strengthened.

Why University of Wisconsin and the Coon lab?

During my initial visit to Wisconsin I found a collaborative and creative graduate student body and fell in love with the campus. As a first-generation college student, I knew I would face new challenges and I wanted an environment where grad students felt happy. I found that at Wisconsin and within the Coon lab. While Wisconsin’s strong presence in chemical biology initially piqued my interest, the Coon lab offers a powerful analytical approach to chemistry that complements many of the molecular biology skills I entered with. During my summer rotation, I became fascinated by the power of mass spectrometry – both its instrumental capabilities and the endless applications available via collaboration.

What are your future goals?

My goal is to work on projects that have real-world applicability. In specific, I want improve mass spectrometry instrumentation through the implementation of Negative Electron Transfer Dissociation (NETD). This analytical technology may be applied to study post-translational modifications on proteins as well as modifications within oligonucleotides to obtain high resolution data.