I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Queensland, working on the genomics and evolution of the bacterial endosymbiont Wolbachia pipientis with Beth McGraw and Scott O'Neill.

Before moving to UQ, I did a postdoc at Trinity College Dublin, in Ken Wolfe's lab. I led a project analysing genome survey sequences from the wine spoilage yeast Dekkera bruxellensis, and participated in the lab's analyses of patterns of gene loss after whole genome duplication in other yeast species. Prior to that, I did my DPhil at the University of Sussex, with Lindell Bromham and Adam Eyre-Walker. For my thesis research, I analysed DNA sequence data from island endemic species, endosymbiotic bacteria, humans and drosophilids to assess the effects of effective population size on the tempo and mode of molecular evolution.

My ongoing research interests build on these foundations, using genomic datasets to investigate how an organism's lifestyle affects the degree to which its evolution is governed by selection or drift, and how this is reflected in its DNA, gene expression and genomic organisation.

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