I’m an Assistant Research Fellow (ARF) in the Leask Lab and have been here since December 2024. I was born in Wellington but spent most of my childhood growing up in Tikitiki. A small town on the East Coast of the North Island, three hours north of Gisborne.
Currently, my role within the lab relates to estimating Polynesian-specific, trait-specific polygenic risk scores (PRS) for individuals who were recruited into the Genetics of Gout, Diabetes, and Kidney disease (GoGDK) study. The goal is to use these scores to test for associations with metabolic data (gene expression/proteins), with the hope of gaining valuable knowledge regarding new drug targets.
Prior to my employment here, I worked as an ARF in the Laboratory for Genomic Medicine. The work in that lab revolved around understanding the Whakapapa distributions of Māori participants recruited into the Aotearoa (NZ) Variome study and was supervised by Prof. Stephen Robertson. I also tutor two first year statistics papers run out of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics (STAT110/STAT115), as well as help as a biostatistics demonstrator for the first-year health sciences paper HUBS191. I studied at the University of Otago (2016-2022). Graduating with a Bachelor of Science (BSc, majoring in Genetics) in 2018, then with a Master of Applied Science (MAppSc, majoring in Quantitative Genetics) in 2022.
Outside of work, my hobbies and interests include playing lots of tennis and returning to the Coast to see family.
Thanks for reading.