I received my B.S. in Bioengineering at University of California, San Diego (UCSD) before joining Dr. Shyni Varghese's lab at UCSD for my graduate degree.  For my doctoral studies, I received the Engelson Award for best thesis in Bioengineering by investigating cancer cell mechanics and developing fluidic devices that incorporated 3D photopatterning for disease modeling.  This work also allowed me to explore potential commercialization of my research by successfully getting accepted into the NSF-ICORPS and ONEStart Entrepreneurship programs.

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Following my graduate studies, I joined Dr. Darrell J. Irvine's lab at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where I worked in vaccinology and immunology as a NRSA Post-doctoral Fellow for AIDS related research.  In particular, I investigated  protease activity within lymph nodes that modulated humoral response against different vaccine modalities. For this work, I received the Young Investigator Award from the Scripps Consortium for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Development.​

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As an independent investigator, I seek to further understand humoral immunity and bridge my post-doctoral research with my past experiences in cancer and quantitative tool development.