After completing an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at the University of East Anglia, I began my PhD with Professor Philip Gilmartin. My project was split between the John Innes Centre and the Earlham Institute.
Our research focussed on characterising genes that function in the heteromorphic self-incompatibility system of heterostylous Primula flowers. During my PhD, I was given the opportunity to get involved with bioinformatics and quickly became engrossed in computing; from BASH scripting to bare metal chip programming in low-level assembly language.
I am now employed to work on the Darwin Tree of Life project as part of a team aiming to obtain reference genomes for all 66,000 eukaryotic species in the UK. My focus is on population genetics and genome assembly of Hymenoptera species, many of which are important pollinators.
