I am a scientist. I write papers about the science I do, which is mostly about microorganisms. I like the exercise of doing science because it sharpens my mind and I enjoy exploring the unknown. I like to program in R and Python and I enjoy working with voluminous amounts of sequencing data. I am fascinated by the origin of life, the complexity of cellular machinery and the interface between geological and living processes. I recently became interested in Assembly Theory, which models the cosmos as a continuum between molecular and biological evolution.
During my postdoctoral scholarship in The Department of Plant and Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, I researched the ecology of Coccidioides fungi and the outdoor airborne fungal microbiome (the air myco-biome). This followed my doctoral research in the Graduate Group in Ecology at The University of California Davis, which focused on how greenhouse gas emissions are influenced by soil microorganisms. This work was in the Alaskan Arctic, which was really fun.