Staff Profile

• I obtained my PhD from the University of Technology Sydney, Australia in 2015.
• During my PhD, I elucidated novel virulence mechanisms (invasion of host cells, biofilm formation and endoproteolytic cleavage) utilised by the porcine respiratory pathogen Mycoplasma hyopneumoniae.
• I was then awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship in 2018 to work as a postdoc at the Institute of Pharmacology and Structural Biology in Toulouse, France.
• Here, I deciphered the molecular functions of the C-type lectin receptor DCIR, a receptor that plays diverse roles in a range of autoimmune and infectious disease contexts. 
• In 2021, I joined the lab of Matthias Trost as a postdoc to study the role of ubiquitylation in phagosome maturation in response to bacterial infection. 

My research has primarily been focused on the elucidation of eukaryote responses to bacterial infection. As a researcher, my passion is to explore and decipher the diverse signalling events associated with bacterial infection as well as pathogenic effector molecules. I have skills in an array of multidisciplinary systems-wide techniques, primarily in biochemistry and proteomics, that I have utilised to investigate the ability of bacteria to elicit responses from host cells and hijack numerous cellular processes. Additionally, I have a strong foundation in imaging, employing confocal microscopy, super resolution microscopy and electron microscopy to visually dissect these observations.