I did my doctoral research at a yeast genetics lab under Ed Louis and Rhona Borts, where I learned the awesome power of yeast genetics and was greatly inspired by the experimental evolution work of Rich Lenski and Paul Rainey. I did postdoctoral work with Mike Travisano before getting a faculty position at UCL. I moved to Plön in 2010 to take advantage of the great research environment and funding offered by the Institute.

My overall aim is use the things we can do with yeast in the lab to understand its evolution in nature. I can still do some bench work, and I’m currently collaborating with Dr Jun-Yi Leu at the Academia Sinica to engineer recombination hotspots into an F1 yeast hybrid.