I am a PhD candidate and NSF Graduate Research Fellow in Dr. Alison Sweeney’s lab and my thesis studies the biochemical identity and structure of the bodies of comb jellies, also known as ctenophores. I focus on determining the biochemical and material properties that make their body gelatinous. I then use comparative methods to contextualize ctenophores with other gelatinous animals and with other diverse solid or liquid animal materials. I use techniques such as a Thermogravimetric Analyzer (TGA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), rheometry, Dynamic Light Scattering (DLS), and colorimetric concentration assays.I have also received specific training in ctenophore and medusazoan biology and taxonomy, as well as animal care and field collection techniques, in 2022 during a 3-week workshop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Bocas del Toro, Panama. I also participated in a 1-week workshop in 2023 on Techniques for Characterization of Carbohydrate Structure of Plant and Microbial Polysaccharides at the University of Georgia's Complex Carbohydrate Research Center. I learned how to use GC-MS and NMR to determine monosaccharide composition, linkage analysis, and polysaccharide or glycoprotein identity.

I have been the Graduate Lead Mentor in this organization for the past year where I work with a leadership team, made of undergraduate and graduate students and administrators, at the Academic Strategies Program of the Poorvu Center for Teaching & Learning. I lead our mentorship trainings and monthly staff meetings, coordinate the matching of mentors and mentees, promote the program via advertisement, provide primary communication for mentors and mentees about program updates, and plan community-building events throughout the year. I have also mentored three graduate students in STEM regularly throughout the past two years to provide support with their graduate studies and student life, with particular emphasis on disability and accommodation advocacy. I have been a peer mentor before becoming Lead Mentor since April 2021.

For three years, I led and helped revamp a two-week, four session discussion workshop on oral communication skills for MB&B 517: Methods and Logic in Interdisciplinary Research, which is a required graduate level discussion course on interdisciplinary topics in biophysics and bioengineering for students in Yale's Physical & Engineering Biology program. This work was recently published to demonstrate how discussion workshops can help level the playing field for students in interdisciplinary fields coming from different backgrounds (Shipps, et al. 2022) I led the workshop in the Spring of 2021, 2022, and 2023 with one other graduate student every year. I collaborated with a team of five total graduate students and several faculty to survey students over the course of four years and write this publication. I taught ~60 students over the course of three years.

I was a Teaching Fellow for MCDB105b: Biology, The World, and Us for two semesters, which is an introductory biology course for non-science majors. I led weekly discussion sections where I reviewed basic biology topics that the students learned in lectures, like biochemistry, evolution, microbiology, etc. In these sessions, I also prepared reading materials, and relevant videos, and activities to connect biology topics to real-world problems, such as pandemic preparedness, accessible reproductive services, and climate change.

Project Title: Ion-dependent swelling and condensation of mucous vesicles from Pacific hagfish slimeAdvisor: Dr. Douglas FudgeAs an undergraduate student and for six months after graduation, I was a member of Dr. Fudge's Comparative Biomaterials Lab. I worked on determining the mechanism for swelling of mucin vesicles that make up hagfish slime, which hagfish secrete as a defense mechanism. • Design and conduct experiments to analyze ion-dependence of mucous vesicles swelling and condensation using dynamic light scattering, SDS-PAGE, DIC and fluorescence microscopy, microfluidics, and R programming• Manage hagfish animal care facilities in two locations, maintain animal records, clean animal care facilities, advise undergraduate students • Developed managerial, leadership, communication, research, writing, speaking, data analysis, and collaboration skills

I was the SI Leader for general chemistry lab to help students learn and succeed in general chemistry.• Taught review sessions and hosted office hours twice a week every week for General Chemistry I & II Labs with interactive exercises• Covered gases, redox and acid-base reactions, solutions, thermodynamics, forces, kinetics, atomic structure and bonding

I was selected to participate in Yale University's NSF-funded REU on the Convergence of Research at the Interface of the Biological, Physical, and Engineering Sciences for the summer of 2017. I worked on a project on the diffusive states of chromatin in Dr. Megan King's lab.Project Title: Mapping spatial dynamics: Chromatin diffusive states in S. pombe Advisor: Dr. Megan King• Created new yeast strains through cassette and colony PCR, primer design, transformations, and fission yeast cells culturing, tracked gene movement using deconvolution microscopy, and measured diffusion coefficients of the movements using MATLAB• Established collaboration, communication, speaking, and molecular biology laboratory skills