Profile

I am a British Kiwi living in Liverpool – the best city in the world! I grew up in Worcester, UK, and have been interested in infectious diseases and health for as long as I can remember.
Growing up, my mum worked in the social sector supporting vulnerable people, with a specific involvement in LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS work. Therefore, I had an understanding of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and how this impacted peoples lives from a young age. Fascinated, by how a virus could cause so much stigma, I volunteered for HIV charities from 16 years old, where I eventually volunteered for 3 months in Zimbabwe working on community health projects when I was 18. At this point in my life, I thought I wanted to be a medical doctor that specialised in infectious diseases. Despite gaining a place for medical school at Liverpool, I was unsuccessful in gaining the A-level results for entry.
The University of Liverpool changed my offer to biomedical sciences, and I took them up on the offer, as I knew that I still wanted to move and learn! Early on, I switched to the Physiology programme as this was more focused on the human body and how it worked. Whilst at undergraduate, I was still dead set on doing post graduate medicine, however, in my 2nd year, I attended a lecture about HIV and immunology. This was the first time I realised and fully appreciated how impactful research could be. I immediately rang my mum afterwards and told her “I don’t want to be a doctor; I want to be a Virologist”.
During my final year of University, I did my first research project, ever! I asked if I could do a project with viruses, and that’s what I did! It was overwhelming at first, being in a lab with no experience, but towards the end it felt natural and enjoyable. I was still unsure about my career at this point, and watching friends go off to do PhDs or research masters wasn’t for me either. After a couple of months of research, I wanted to try something else and pursue another one of my interests… So, I did a masters in international public health, planning and management at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.
I still think this was the best thing I did, as it taught me to think about health and disease beyond molecular science. The people I met and the learnt with were from all around the globe and from many backgrounds in public health, medicine, and humanitarian sectors, really enforcing the multidisciplinary nature of infectious diseases.
The PhD I originally applied for was on Ebola virus, using clinical samples to look at what drives fatality and survival, however, when I started my PhD, I started working on coronaviruses!

RNA viruses such as influenza virus, coronaviruses and ebola viruses are able to evolve. This means their genetic code will change over time, this may or may not effect how the virus replicates and causes disease. One of the things I do in my research is to sequence the genetic code of RNA viruses, using sequencing devices made by Oxford Nanopore. This produces lots of data, so I have to use bioinformatics to handle and analyse the data – using command line tools and scripts.