I am a PhD candidate working in Dr. Stephan Schmitz-Esser’s lab at Iowa State University. My research focuses on the endosymbiotic bacterium Cardinium hertigii which resides in a wide array of insects and arachnids. Like the more widely-known Wolbachia, Cardinium can cause cytoplasmic incompatibility (CI) where the mating between an infected male and an uninfected female does not produce viable offspring, although the two endosymbionts have evolved the ability to cause CI independently. My current work is part of a collaborative effort with the goal of uncovering how Cardinium causes CI by focusing on the interactions between proteins produced by the endosymbiont and those of the insect host as well as characterizing the impact and function of potential CI-causing genes on host organisms.Along with my PhD research listed above, I am also involved in various other projects via bioinformatics and molecular biological approaches, including whole genome sequencing and various areas of bioinformatics, such as genome and transcriptome assembly and other command line-based manipulation of large datasets. I have also been working as a TA for a capstone microbiology lab course at ISU where I have been involved in experimental setup and design as well as student instruction.