About Me
I grew up in South Carolina and completed my bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering at Georgia Tech in 2018. My love of problem solving and strong interest in translational cancer research led me to move out west and join Alana’s lab in 2021 as a PhD graduate student. My thesis primarily focuses on using patient-derived xenograft organoids (PDxOs) to understand and characterize the small molecule SMAC mimetic therapy Birinapant as a new treatment for triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) patients. I work to understand why some TNBC patients are inherently resistant or sensitive to SMAC mimetics, and how we can distinguish them from one another using biomarkers to select for patients who could respond to treatment in the clinic. On the weekends, I’ll usually be hiking, camping, cooking or eating great food, or traveling with my friends and family!