I’m a PhD candidate in the Cell, Molecular, Developmental Biology, and Biophysics (CMDB) program at Johns Hopkins University, in the lab of Rajiv McCoy.

I use long- and short-read sequencing data to understand the evolutionary impacts of repetitive and structurally complex genomic regions, including structural variants.

Research Projects

Phylogeny from clonal hematopoiesis simulation

Evolutionary simulations of somatic mosaicism

The cells in our bodies accumulate somatic mutations throughout our lives. Some mutations cause overproliferation and can eventually lead to cancer. I developed a model of these evolutionary dynamics in the blood, built with the software SLiM, that incorporates telomere shortening as a cell death mechanism.

Frequency-differentiated variants in T2T-CHM13 novel regions

Novel variant discovery with the
Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium

When the human genome was first sequenced in 2001, 8% of its most complex regions remained incomplete for the next two decades. I worked with the Telomere-to-Telomere Consortium, which assembled the first ever complete human genome in 2021, to assess how this genome can improve genetics research.

Schematic of variant graph genotyping

Selection and introgression at human structural variant loci

Large genomic rearrangements, called structural variants, are understudied but can have dramatic functional impacts. I used a hybrid genotyping approach to discover these variants on a population-wide scale, and found evidence of a Neanderthal structural variant under selection in southeast Asia.

Prediction of archaic gene expression by Colbran et al. (2019)

Review: Studying archaic hominin gene expression

Recent research on Neanderthals and Denisovans has used gene expression to understand how archaic hominins may have differed from modern humans. In this review, I described the creative methods used to infer archaic hominin gene expression from DNA sequencing data.

Oral Presentations

2022 JHU CMDB Program Retreat
Local adaptation and archaic introgression at human structural variant loci
2022 T2T-F2F
Human genetic diversity within challenging regions of the genome
2022 Advances in Genome Biology and Technology
A complete reference genome improves analysis of human genetic variation
2021 eLife Symposium: Evolutionary Medicine
Local adaptation and archaic introgression at human structural variant loci
2021 Biology of Genomes, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Local adaptation and archaic introgression at human structural variant loci
2020 American Society of Human Genetics
The role of structural variation in human local adaptation
2020 Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution | Cancelled due to COVID-19
The role of structural variation in human local adaptation

Fellowships and Awards

2022 Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) F31, NIH/NHGRI
2022 JHU Discovery Award (with Rajiv McCoy, Winston Timp, & Alexis Battle)
2020 Instructional Enhancement Grant, JHU Center for Teaching Excellence & Innovation
2020 Honorable Mention, NSF Graduate Research Fellowships Program
2019 Adam T. Bruce Fellowship, JHU
2019 Registration Award, Society for Molecular Biology & Evolution
2014—2018 Tanner Dean's Scholar, Cornell University

Academic Service

The symBIOsis organizing committee in fall 2022

symBIOsis

A support and mentorship group for biology PhD students, which I co-founded in 2020.

Stock photo of JHU's Gilman Hall

BioReps

I advocate for the CMDB student body as my graduate cohort's elected representative.

Teaching

Personal Projects