At my former lab at UT Austin.

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Graduation day in september 2021. Almost two years after I graduated!

​I am a bioinformatician who specializes in genome evolution and phylogenomics. I am fascinated by all we can do with molecular data: from improving human health to preventing diseases and understanding how plants and animals evolved through space and time over millions of years.

When I am not gardening or petting my dog, I am  coding, collecting data, processing and cleaning DNA/RNA reads, assembling and annotating genomes, analyzing large datasets, coding a bit more, and refactoring my code. Then, assessing results, interpreting findings, communicating with peers, and having insights to find interesting questions to explore next. 
 
Curiosity about plants' shapes and colors led me to study plant taxonomy in college. Species with overlapping morphologic characteristics, and a lack of answers about factors that govern biodiversity on Earth, led me to study evolution. Studying how plants evolved through space and time exposed me to big data! A whole new world of large datasets of genomes, fossils, species geographic distribution, and statistical models to explore and investigate the tree of life.