My recent focus has been on learning molecular lab skills and conducting in-depth bioinformatic analyses. I have experience preparing and analysing whole-genome sequence and gene expression data using Pooled Sequencing, Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) and Differential Gene Expression pipelines. My research experience spans experiment planning and insect rearing through to molecular wet lab processes, working safely with liquid nitrogen, and general project management in a lab setting. I am proficient in R, Bash, and Unix, familiar with various command-line tools such as SLURM workload manager, and well-practised in running parallel jobs on high-performance computing systems. Another area I continue to nourish from my background is front-end and back-end web development.
Before attending university, I spent over a decade in web development, leading a team of developers and designers for seven years. The strong programming and visual communication skills I developed have been a valuable asset to my research career, as has my experience with server administration, version control, database management, and delivering at pace. During my undergraduate studies in biology, I acquired a broad range of laboratory, field, and statistical skills. I also learnt how to create agent-based models, which I used to ask questions about the evolution of polyploidy in plants. During that time, I freelanced on a range of interesting projects, which began to tie my technical experience with my new skills in biology; I made teaching tools with interactive population models in Shiny, contributed to R package development (resevol), and incorporated evolutionary models into a research game that aimed to find out how Brazilian farmers make decisions regarding pest control.
Using applications and games as research, workshop, and decision-making tools is an area that continues to interest me. Alongside my PhD, I am the Director of Myreton Ltd, which focuses on creative and intellectual programming briefs. A recent programming collaboration I worked on was a workshop tool designed to stimulate discussion amongst stakeholders who have vital roles in achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, especially regarding pollinator abundance and diversity.
Recent Education
- 2020-current: Research PhD, University of Stirling.
- 2016-2020: BSc Hons Biology - first class, University of Stirling.
Molecular Lab Experience
- DNA and RNA preservation/extraction/purification
- Polymerase chain reactions (PCR and qPCR)
- Gel electrophoresis
Programming Experience
- R
- PHP
- JavaScript
- jQuery
- Ajax
- Angular
- SQL
- JSON
- Bash
- HTML
- CSS
- SCSS
- LaTeX
- Markdown
- C++
Languages
- English (native)
- Italian (CEFR Lvl A2)
In addition to details of the published papers I've contributed to, I also post about papers in review, current findings that are not yet submitted for review, public reports I have been involved in creating, and tools I've developed for research or education.