Principal investigator: I am a computational microbiologist who spent most of my time as a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher developing tools for analyzing microbial sequence data (such as UniFrac), and applying these tools to interesting datasets. My primary focus is on understanding the complex community of microorganisms that inhabit the human gut, the ways in which these microbes interact with our immune system, the functions that different microbial compositions may confer (e.g. in producing various metabolites from our food) and how these activities impact our health.

Lab Manager Extraordinaire: I completed my Master’s degree research in a microbial ecology lab investigating bacterial bioremediation.  If you ever want to distract me, ask about the connection between Native American artifacts, mercury, and bacteria.  While working for an alternative energy company, I developed a strong interest in the tools of molecular microbiology and metabolic engineering.  I brought my skills to the Lozupone lab in May 2015 where I prepare and analyze our next-generation sequencing and investigate microbial metabolisms.  I have a diverse research background, but that seems to be the norm for the field of Microbiome research and it provides me with good story-telling material.

Fellow: I am a pediatric gastroenterology fellow at Children's Hospital Colorado interested in how the microbiome affects clinical manifestations GI disease including recurrent Clostridium difficile infections and inflammatory bowel disease. During my pediatric residency at Lurie Children's in Chicago, my research focused on utilizing the Mediterranean diet to maintain health in patients with IBD which fostered an interest in how dietary interventions and microbiome modulation may alter the natural history of GI disease. I joined the Lozupone lab to learn microbiome analysis and utilize applications across disease states and patient populations. As a lifelong midwesterner, I am enjoying the sunny weather and hiking when not in and around the hospital!

Professional Research Assistant: I completed a B.S. in Biology at CU Denver where I worked in a molecular biology lab researching factors that influence stem cell pluripotency. After graduation, I became a research assistant at CU Anschutz in a lab studying neurodegenerative diseases. I am interested in the gut-brain axis and how the microbiome may play a role in mental health and neurologic conditions like Alzheimer’s Disease. When not in the lab, I’m usually snowboarding, gardening, or hiking with my two dogs, Bluebell and Scoby.

Post Doc: I joined the Lozupone Lab in 2024 after completing my Ph.D. in Microbiology here at CU-AMC. My doctoral thesis work focused on investigating bacterial mechanisms of methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) vaginal tract colonization using genome-wide transposon mutagenesis sequencing (Tn-seq). I am supported by the Computational Biosciences T15 training grant and plan to further develop pipelines to study interactions between bacterial pairs in the gut. I am incredibly passionate about vaginal and reproductive health and hope to eventually use my skills to investigate underlying causes of understudied gynecological diseases using large dataset analyses. 

Post Doc: After graduating from Cornell University with a B.S. in Biology I spent three years at the National Institutes of Health as a postbaccalaureate fellow. I loved it there so much I chose to stay and get my Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology through a graduate partnership program with Georgetown University. My work there involved investigating mechanisms of microbial translocation in SIV infection of rhesus macaques and developing ways to reduce translocation and the downstream immune activation it causes. As a postdoc in the Lozupone lab my work will focus on the contributions of intestinal dysbiosis and butyrate deficiency to barrier dysfunction and metabolic syndrome in people living with HIV. Outside of the lab I am a huge fan of games, from card games and board games to MMORPGs. 

Graduate Student in Microbiology: I graduated from and worked as a research assistant at the University of Oregon, where I became interested in the intersection of bacterial-bacterial and bacterial-host interactions. My research in the Lozupone lab will be focused on applying macroscale ecological ideas such as successional theory to the gut microbiome. I plan to investigate traits that are potentially beneficial to pioneer species as well as whether we can use synbiotic strategies to restore complex communities after disturbance events.

Graduate Student Computational Biology: I graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in Biology and French minoring in Informatics and Modeling. Throughout that time, I was able to participate in a summer program at Anschutz Medical Campus which introduced me to various branches of research being performed on campus. As a graduate student I was able to rotate in the Lozupone lab where my research led to insights in the impact that diet may have on a patient with HIV’s response to treatment. By joining the lab I hope to continue this type of research and apply the skills I have learned to investigate the impact that diet has on the human gut microbiome using new workflows and software.

Graduate Student in Microbiology: I graduated from the College of the Holy Cross with a BA in chemistry and mathematics, before I earned my MS in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After graduating, I worked as a research professional at Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, where I studied the lower airway microbiome in Cystic Fibrosis. Upon enrolling in the Microbiology PhD program at CU Anschutz, I pursued research in computational microbiology. I joined Dr. Lozupone's lab, where I have been researching the dynamics of the gut microbiome and host immune cell populations in HIV. Specifically, I am exploring the impact of dietary interventions on negative metabolic and inflammatory outcomes associated with chronic HIV infection.    

Master’s Student in Microbiology and Immunology: I graduated from Utah Valley University in 2021 with a BS in Biology where I worked as a microbiology lab research assistant. In my time as a microbiology lab research assistant at UVU, I was able to design an experiment for investigating the diversity of the vaginal microbiome which sparked my interest in further microbial ecology research. After graduating, I worked in the sterility department at Eurofins testing donated organ and tissue samples for microbes. Upon being admitted to the BSBT MIM Master’s Program at CU Anschutz, I discovered my passion for computational biology and sought out microbiome research labs. I chose to pursue my thesis in the Lozupone Lab where I have been researching the effects of dietary components on the gut microbiome and subsequent response to C. difficile infection through newly generated workflows and analytic methods.