Profile

I did all of my education in Canada and moved to the UK in summer 2021. Moving to a new country during a pandemic was challenging, but worth it! When I’m at home, I almost always have a dog on my lap 🙂 I have two Shiba Inu dogs, and I spoil them rotten.

I am obsessed with good stories–video games, books, tv… if it has a good story, I’m in! Bonus points if it’s scifi 🚀 I’m really into 3D design and making cool stuff with my 3D printer. My favourite foods of all time are takoyaki (fried octopus balls) and sushi 🍣 I started practicing Kendo (Japanese fencing) during my PhD and I love it! I also enjoy hiking with my dogs and taking them to new places ⛰️

I knew I wanted to be a neuroscientist when I started to learn about the brain in high school. It’s the part of your body that makes you you–it stores all your memories, your personality, your thoughts and feelings. I’m fascinated with the brain and determined to figure out how it works.

Worm “brains” contain only 302 neurons (brain cells). This is a lot less than the millions of neurons in the human brain! Despite this simplicity, worms are still capable of learning and forming memories. How is this possible?

In my work, I use the relatively simple system of the worm brain to study how the human brain works at the fundamental level. One benefit of using worms is that we already know how each neuron in the worm brain is connected to one another–we have completely mapped the “connectome” of the worm brain! This provides scientists with a way to study how these connections change during learning. Worms can learn to avoid things they encounter in their environment–for example, if the worm encounters salt in a place where there is no food, it will learn that salt and starvation are associated with one another and it will avoid salt in the future. This form of learning is called associative learning and is something that humans do all the time! If we can figure out how this type of simple learning occurs in worms, it will bring us one step closer to understanding how humans learn.

I make my own work schedule, so I am able to work whenever is most convenient for me. My work schedule will also depend on when the equipment is available (for example, microscopes that we share with other labs). I typically work from home when doing administrative work, data analysis, preparing presentations/papers, or attending virtual meetings. When I go into the lab, I usually spend time taking care of my worms (they eat a lot of food!) and doing molecular biology experiments. At our institute, other scientists often give talks to present their work (although lately they have all been virtual), and I try to attend as many of these as possible!