Welcome to Princeton! I am a lecturer in the Department of Molecular Biology, where I teach an original research course for junior MOL majors, as well as co-teach in the department’s non-majors course, MOL101. I love getting to know students at each end of the spectrum - students that see molecular biology as their future and students that come in asking “What is DNA?”. I am also an instructor in the Freshman Scholars Institute MOL summer course.
My journey has been a pretty local one. After completing my Ph.D. at Princeton in 2008 (yes, I am a Princeton graduate alum!), I spent five years performing postdoctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania. I then spent three years as a Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College before returning to Princeton in an undergraduate-focused role. My research explores the genetic and cell biological requirements to form a branched tubular organ, such as the vertebrate vascular system. To study this, we use the tracheal system of the fruit fly as a model. This work is the basis of my fall original research course.
You will often find me having a late breakfast with junior and senior MOL majors in Whitman throughout the semester, so feel free to stop by and say hi. I am always up for an advising meeting over a mid-morning meal!