Expertise & background

I am a genetic epidemiologist with a background in psychology and statistics. I use a combination of observational and genetic epidemiology to understand the aetiology of complex traits/diseases. 

Previous research

My doctoral research focused on trying to disentangle the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and sleep duration, using large population-based studies. To do this, I analysed a combination of epidemiological and genomic data.

Current work

Research

I am currently a postdoctoral research fellow in Prof. Nish Chaturvedi's MRC LHA Unit and I work in collaboration with Prof. Aroon Hingorani's Translational Genomics group. I also collaborate with researchers at the Institute of Sport and Exercise at UCL and the Institute of Health Informatics. Externally, I collaborate with researchers at the University of Oxford, University of Cambridge, University of Bristol, Harvard University and the Universidad de la Republica in Uruguay.

I am also a Visiting Research Fellow at LSHTM and work closely with Prof. Liam Smeeth and Prof. Krishnan Bhaskaran in the Department of Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology. I currently use genomic and epidemiological data from the UK Biobank and Southall and Brent REvisited (SABRE) studies to try to understand the associations between glycemic traits and several outcomes, both physical and in the brain. I also have an interest in ethnic differences underlying these complex relationships and biological processes.

Student supervision

I currently supervise student dissertations across the following courses: MSc Data Science, MSc Health and Society: Social Epidemiology and BSc Population Health, MSc Cardiovascular Science and BSc Natural Sciences. I also supervise MRC PhD Year 1 rotation projects and am PhD supervisor for an MRC student and a student at the Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la Republica, Uruguay.