About Me
I am an Arts & Science Postdoctoral Fellow in the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Toronto, where I build mathematical models of infectious diseases as part of Dr. Nicole Mideo’s lab, in addition to other infectious disease epidemiology work. I previously completed my PhD in Biology in Dr. Matt Ferrari’s lab at Penn State, worked as a clinical research coordinator in the Infectious Disease Division at the Hospital for Sick Children (Toronto, Canada), and concurrently completed an MSc in Global Health Policy at LSHTM. Prior to working in public health and epidemiology, I completed an MChem in Chemistry at the University of Oxford, where my Masters year focused on computational chemistry. Here I realized that I enjoyed research and computational modeling, but wanted to work in a more applied healthcare-related field. Since then, I have applied and developed my skills in Public Health research.
My research interests are in infectious disease epidemiology, with a particular focus on the use of mathematical models to improve outbreak response and resource utilization: namely, how the choices we make in categorizing continuous quantitative data affects our understanding and ability to anticipate, detect, and respond to outbreaks. I primarily work with R and Julia, but have experience with Python, Bash, and am learning Rust for fun.
When I’m not working, I can be found outside doing one of the following (depending on the season): mountain biking, road cycling, rock climbing, hiking, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, or very occasionally, running.
Education & Fellowships
Postdoctoral Fellow, 2025 - Present, University of Toronto
Postdoctoral Scholar, 2025, Pennsylvania State University
PhD Biology, 2020 - 2024, Pennsylvania State University
MSc Global Health Policy, 2017 - 2020, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
MChem Chemistry, 2011 - 2015, University of Oxford
Research Experience
Postdoctoral Fellow, Dec 2025 – Present, University of Toronto, Dr. Nicole Mideo
- Examining the impact of modelling susceptibility as a continuous function.
- Developing training materials for epidemiologists, focusing on learning the Julia programming language within a familiar context, as well as how to employ AI tools to improve software quality and increase confidence in analyses.
Postdoctoral Scholar, Jan 2025 – Dec 2025, Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Matt Ferrari
Characterized the effectiveness of national Foot-and-Mouth Disease vaccination campaigns in India since 2011, digitizing and cleaning data, and producing reports for governmental partners.
PhD Student, Aug 2020 – Dec 2024, Pennsylvania State University, Dr. Matt Ferrari
Worked on:
- The Data4Action Research Project examining the dynamics of COVID-19 in a university community
- Resource utilisation strategies for measles surveillance and detection in the Democratic Republic of Congo
- The effects of population-level thresholds for the detection and response to outbreaks
- How critical slowing down metrics perform in light of non-target diseases (background noise)
Clinical Research Coordinator, Apr 2018 – Dec 2019, The Hospital for Sick Children
Coordinated a multi-centre observational study into waning immunity in infants to measles, mumps and varicella, and managed all data produced by the National Microbiology Laboratory and the Nova Scotia Health Authority laboratory.
Responsibilities included:
- Data Management
- Data Analysis
- Grant Applications
- Patient enrollment and consent
Honorary Clinical Researcher, Jun 2016 - May 2019, BOTNAR, University of Oxford
Responsibilities included:
- Data Analysis
- 4-D CT Analysis
- MRI Segmentation
- Contributing researcher in multicentre FAIM study