I have pursued a funded research program that is focused on spatially structured host-symbiont interactions. The broader impacts of understanding these selective forces include a better understanding of the pathogen virulence evolution and conditions necessary for disease emergence. My research incorporates fieldwork, molecular analysis, and experimental laboratory research as well as mathematical modeling to study species interactions. My research team has unique expertise to couple molecular characterization of the soil microbial communities. My lab has several years of experience characterizing the impacts of permafrost thaw on microbial communities. We have a well-established field site close to the UAF campus where we have conducted work on the active layer of soil (above the permafrost).

My research team has a commitment to broadening participation in biomedical research. Since becoming a faculty member in January 2015, I have actively engaged students in independent research. I have mentored graduate and undergraduate students with most writing and successfully funding their own independent research. I developed a course on the Human Microbiome where students use genomics tools generate and analyze next-generation sequencing data. In addition, I also use hackathons to enable undergraduates to explore nanopore sequencing technology. In those “hackathons”, we ran our own experiment and learned the basics of genomic data analysis with this sequencing platform.