Kia ora! 👋
I’m a doctoral candidate in the University of Auckland’s Joint Graduate School in Plant and Food Science, based at Plant & Food Research.
I am passionate about understanding how plant pathogens emerge, evolve, and cause disease. In particular, I am interested in understanding how plant pathogens co-evolve with their hosts, both in the field and in experimental settings.
My PhD research focuses on using the kiwifruit pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae to understand how plant pathogens evolve during incursions. I’m examining effector requirements, redundancies, and repertoire refinement across different kiwifruit hosts, using complementary approaches of 🌿 orchard-based genome biosurveillance and 🧪 effector knockout strain competition!
I’m also a Graduate Teaching Assistant for BIOSCI 220: Quantitative Biology, where I help teach students the ropes of data visualisation and statistical analyses using R!
- Pathogen emergence
- Experimental evolution
- Bacterial effectors
- Microbial genomics
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MSc in Biological Sciences, 2020
University of Auckland
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PGDipSci in Biological Sciences, 2019
University of Auckland
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BSc in Biological Sciences, 2018
University of Auckland
Skills & Interests
Education
- Examining effector requirements, redundancies, and repertoire refinement in the emergent kiwifruit pathogen Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae.
- Awarded a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship.
- Identification of candidate Pseudomonas syringae pv. actinidiae effectors that trigger resistance in Actinidia arguta.
- Awarded a Zespri Innovation Scholarship.
- Awarded the Senior Frances Briggs Memorial Prize in Plant Sciences.
- Awarded the Janet Bain Mackay Memorial Prize.
- First in Course for BIOSCI 321 - Plant Pathology.
- Tuākana Certificate of Merit for excellent scholastic achievement in STATS 201.
Posters
Effector knockout competition reveals individually redundant effectors are collectively required for successful virulence
This poster was presented at the 2023 IS-MPMI Congress in Providence, RI.
Four candidate avirulence effectors contribute to Psa3 recognition in Actinidia arguta
This poster was presented at the 2021 IS-MPMI eSymposia and gets a mention in the meeting review ‘Molecular Mechanism & Structure - Zooming in on Plant Immunity’.