I completed my undergraduate degree at Vassar College with a dual major in Biochemistry and German Studies. I then spent a year in Dresden, which included an internship in the lab of Simon Alberti at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, where I studied molecular chaperones in yeast. For my Master’s work, I investigated enzymes that cleave RNA-DNA hybrids in bacteria in the lab of Lyle Simmons at the University of Michigan. After graduation, I returned to Germany to work in the Reber lab.

I am interested in the basic building blocks of the mitotic spindle, namely microtubules and the tubulin subunits from which they are formed. Using advanced imaging techniques such as total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy, I will characterize the dynamics of microtubule polymerization and depolymerization under various conditions.