I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the lab of Professor Pietro Fratta.

I am originally from St. Louis, Missouri and completed my BS in Chemical Engineering at the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2006. An interest in medical research led me to join the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, where I completed a PhD.  I worked in the labs of Denis Wirtz and Ted and Valina Dawson.  I studied the function of a newly identified AAA+ ATPase called Thorase in AMPA receptor trafficking and the protection of neurons from excitotoxicity.

After I completed my PhD, I joined the lab of Thimo Kurz in the MRC-PPU Unit at the University of Dundee and the Institute of Molecular, Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Glasgow.  I studied the new roles of the ubiquitin like modifier NEDD8 in the response to stress and the role of Ubqln2 in ALS and FTD.  

Currently in the Fratta lab, I am investigating how the loss of TDP-43 function leads to aberrant splicing and how these changes in splicing contribute to the patho-physiology of ALS and FTD.