I am an Assistant Professor at the Cancer and Cell Biology Division at the Translational Genomics Institute (TGen) and the Department of Computational and Quantitative Medicine (DCQM) at the Beckman Research Institute (BRI) at City of Hope (COH). I did my postdoc in the laboratory of Roel Verhaak at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and later at the Jackson Laboratory where I studied the molecular makeup of glial brain tumors. During these years, I published first-author papers in top-tier journals including Nature and Cell, and perhaps more importantly, my work played a small part in recent updates to the World Health Organization guidelines for the classification of brain tumors.

My ongoing research aims to dissect the role of telomere dysfunction in gliomagenesis using high-throughput sequencing and computational analysis. I will determine the mutational signatures of telomere dysfunction and provide an accurate picture of the role of this process in shaping cancer genomes. Supported by a K99/R00 transitional award from the National Cancer Institute I am funded to interrogate the strategies of telomere maintenance in cancer cells. My recent awards include being named a Forbeck Scholar by the William Guy Forbeck Research Foundation and being awarded the Research Rising Star Award by the Brain Tumor Charity.