Originally from Winter Park, FL, I attened the University of Florida (UF) for my undergraduate studies in Biomedical Engineering. While at UF, I had the opportunity to work in multiple research labs and discovered my fascination for cancer immunotherapy research. After graduating from UF in April 2021, I began my doctoral studies at Vanderbilt University.
I joined Michael King's laboratory in August 2021, where I am currently researching the behavior of immune cells when activating the mechanosensitive ion channel, Piezo1, using fluid shear stress. My research has the potential to develop high throughput methods of ex vivo immune cell activation for adoptive cell transfer (ACT) cancer immunotherapies. My future work will utilize this methodology to optimize chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cell therapies for the treatment of solid tumors.
