Bio

I am an undergraduate student at the University of Pennsylvania majoring in Biology with a minor in Chemistry, with a research focus on infectious disease dynamics and viral evolution. In my current work, I develop computational pipelines using Python, Nextstrain, and Snakemake to analyze the evolutionary dynamics of H3Nx avian influenza viruses. By constructing phylogenetic trees across all eight viral genome segments, I investigate patterns of reassortment at the population level. My project involves designing scripts to subsample and upsample viral sequence datasets to account for sampling bias, enforce strain consistency across genome segments, and remove outlier sequences, ultimately quantifying how reassortment rates vary across populations.

Prior to Penn, my research interests centered on infectious disease and epidemiology, particularly the transmission dynamics of Chagas disease and their implications for public health. This work included synthesizing key drivers of disease spread and integrating cross-disciplinary perspectives on climate, migration, and insecticide resistance. I am especially interested in how these diseases persist in under-resourced regions, and hope to one day study endemic infections in communities such as the Amazonian region of South America, where environmental factors and limited medical and healthcare infrastructure shape patterns of transmission.

Outside of the lab, I serve as an editor for the Penn Bioethics Journal and am a member of the Penn Club Tennis team. In my free time, I enjoy spending time at the beach with my dog and weight lifting at the gym.