Identifying organisms to degrade pollutants in BluumBio’s portfolio: Petroleum, PAHs, PCBs, PFAS, plastics, pesticidesEstablishing a center for isolating, cultivating, and characterizing bacteria, plants, fungi, and algaeDeveloping novel assays to screen for bioremediation—microplate assays, Nanopore DNA and RNA sequencing, mass spectrometry

Developed novel metagenomic methods, to understand the ecology and physiology of bacteria, at an aquifer contaminated by the Manhattan ProjectAcross a gradient of nitrate, uranium, and exotic heavy metals, we uncovered how microbial communities adapt to and shape their environment Researched with Dr. Lauren Lui, in the lab of PI Adam Arkin, at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab; With the ENIGMA team, a DOE-Scientific Focus Area program

Recipient of Fall 2018 SPUR grant (Student-Initiated Sponsored Project for Undergraduate Research) from the College of Natural Resources. With this research, I completed the Honors Program, presented at my college’s symposium, and submitted a thesisI worked on soil bioremediation at a former Shell-refinery, heavily contaminated by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and heavy metals.Using consortia of bacteria from native plants’ roots, I measured how they degrade crude oil by mass spectrometry, to identify which ate PAHs from the complex mixture.I also used chemical assays to identify plant growth-promoting traits, and isolated bacteria on agar plates.

UNITY Resource Center, based in the UC Berkeley Residential Hall system, supports the queer community and alliesMy freshman year, I lived and learned in the UNITY Housing program. My next year, I joined the intern program in the pilot year; Then, I led the new UNITY Resource Center and established it as a Registered Student OrganizationWorking with a group of 11 dedicated student-interns, this was a great leadership opportunity to support diverse student populations and educate the wider-Berkeley community on identity exploration, self-care, and resource accessibility. We hosted the 10th annual Berkeley-campus Drag Show and even traveled together to Washington DC for the 2018 National LGBTQ Task Force ‘Creating Change’ Conference. UNITY program was then awarded the ‘Community of the Year’ award among PACURH Pacific campus organizations.

This unique summer-course set each student on their own research question. I investigated an unknown gene annotation with a high fitness cost in Caulabacter crescentus—a model organism to dissect the cell cycle and asymmetric division in a bacteria.I used modern Molecular Genetics to transform C. crescentus and knock out my gene of interest through triparental mating. I then characterized the mutant by DIC microscopy and chemical stress-assays. While my gene CCNA_02449 had no annotation, a neighboring gene in its operon was an enzyme for spermidine biosynthesis, so I hypothesized my gene was involved in the stress response to reactive oxygen species (ROS) by synthesizing spermidine to detoxify free-radicals. I then worked with a grad student to design an assay that confirmed my knockout-mutant had increased sensitivity to peroxide-stress.

The project explores methods to inhibit sulfidogenesis in anaerobic chemoorganotrophic bacteria from souring industrial oil field machinery. My project studied how bacterial communities differentialy utilize the same carbon substrates in a crude oil enrichment analyzed by Fourier Transform-Ion Cyclotron Resonance Mass Spectrometry.