About me

I grew up in New Zealand, moving to Australia during high school. I have completed a Bachelor of Medical Science (Hons) at the University of Sydney, majoring in microbiology and pharmacology. I have completed a Bachelor of Medical Science (Hons) at the University of Sydney, majoring in microbiology and pharmacology. I completed my honours year with the Respiratory Research Group at the Woolcock Institute investigating the role of respiratory viruses. Following this experience, my love for research and it’s clinical applications grew, encouraging me to pursue this study further into a PhD with the University of Technology, Sydney. In 2019, I graduated with a PhD in Medical Science and received the Chancellors Award 2019. I am currently undertaking an MD at the University of Sydney, and continuing my research into the respiratory virome.

My research

The clinical implications of respiratory viral infection within specific ‘at risk’ patient groups and the detection of these viruses are my main research interests. My research currently centres on developing a novel viral detection method utilising the mouthpieces/filters used for lung function testing as a way of simply and non-invasively sampling the respiratory tract for viruses. This is being trialed in ‘at risk’ patient groups, namely in individuals with chronic respiratory diseases, post lung transplantation or while in intensive care. As a result, we hope to obtain further information about the role of both symptomatic and asymptomatic viral detection and evaluate the utility of this novel viral detection methodology.