I was trained as a molecular biologist, and started off in the field of cancer biology. Over the course of my scientific wanderings, I have developed strong interests in evolution, evolution of genome architecture, and getting interesting information out of massive datasets.

During my PhD at the University of Maryland in the Haag lab, I looked at the evolution of patterns of sex-biased expression in the Caenorhabditis genus in the light of mating system switch.
Caenorhabditis nematode species of the Elegans group are either dioecious (males and females) or androdioecious (self-fertile hermaphrodites and males). Mating systems have a profound impact on genome structure evolution, both indirectly through their effects on population genetics and directly due to the genetic control of reproductive traits. As opposed to androdioecious Caenorhabditis, for which self-fertile hermaphrodites constitute most of the populations, both sexes are involved in maintenance of the ability to produce offspring in dioecious species. In order to understand better the consequences of selfing emergence on the genes underlying traits related to mating processes, we compared transcriptome-wide patterns of expression from C. elegans, androdieocious species, to that of three male/female species, C. japonica, C.brenneri and C. remanei.

I am now starting as a postdoc fellow in the Cutter lab, where I am learning more about population genetics.