Biography

I attended the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science (MSMS), Mississippi’s premier high school for gifted Mississippian students. During my final semester, my curiosity of infectious disease research led me to participate in MSMS’s Research Shadowing Program. Through this, I met Dr. Xiu-Feng (Henry) Wan, a professor at Mississippi State University’s (MSU) College of Veterinary Medicine. My semester of shadowing initiated a long time obsession with infectious disease research and virology, which led me to enroll at Mississippi State University to continue working under Dr. Wan. My undergraduate research in Dr. Wan’s lab has allowed us to understand some aspects of the epidemiology and pathology of bovine influenza D virus in cattle. During my undergraduate career, I was also able to conduct research in avian immunology in Dr. Yin Li’s lab at Jiangsu Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Nanjing, China. While at the University of Cambridge, I will work under Dr. Andrew Firth using bioinformatics to answer questions related to RNA virus evolution. I am excited to engage with my fellow Gates-Cambridge peers and alumni in order to collaborate on infectious disease research.

Previous Education

Mississippi State University