I am a neuroscientist by training, obtaining my Honours degrees (Biochemistry, Psychology) and then MSc in Psychology at the University of Otago, Dunedin, before moving to Canada (University of Calgary @Calgary) for my PhD, with a couple of research positions in Japan (Kobe University @Kobe, RIKEN @Wako) in between. After completing my PhD, I spent about six years in Scandinavia (Kavli Institute for Systems Neuroscience @Trondheim, Karolinska Institutet @Stockholm/Solna) for postdoctoral training before returning to NZ. I have worked with various disease models (rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s disease, affective/anxiety disorders and Alzheimer’s disease) using a wide range of techniques (single/multi-unit recordings, behavioural tests, deep brain stimulation, virus production, optogenetics, confocal/two-photon imaging, patch-clamping, signal processing, programming, immunohistochemistry, amperometry, EEG, functional and structural MRI) to interrogate the causal links between brain and behaviour in health and disease.
In the ENHANCE lab, I leverage my competencies in molecular biology and experience in zebrafish behaviour/whole-brain imaging to examine the brain region-specific changes in activity and volume. I am also utilising my earlier training in bioinformatics/genetics and experience in programming and statistics to help me develop expertise in ongoing genome-wide association and polygenic risk score studies in the lab. I am interested in finding how genes of interest shared between diseases can reveal early, developmentally related targets for pre-emptive, synergistic treatment strategies.
I play music, cook/bake, game and read when not bogged down by the jungle growing outside my house.