What is your favourite enzyme, and why?

My favorite protein is Rep1. It makes a small circular DNA be inherited in the yeast used to make the beer we drink, but we have no idea how it works.

 

What is your favourite book?

Anne of Green Gables- it’s really about a girl who, as bright as she is, is stuck in rural PEI and there’s no way out- it’s really feminist literature.

 

What is the most recent book you’ve read?

Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel, or All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.

 

What is your favourite amino acid, and why?

It has to be lysine followed closely by arginine. They’re important in DNA binding proteins and it’s easy to remember lysine codons.

 

What are some of your hobbies?

Hiking, I go backpacking with my siblings.

 

What is your dream vacation?

The hiking ones! The Appalachian Trail, we did the Inca Trail- preferably anything in the mountains.

 

What is the coolest project you’ve ever worked on?

Sequencing the ends of human chromosomes , seeing the sequence on x-ray film, just because we had no idea what was there.

 

What’s the biggest mistake you’ve made in lab?

Every possible mistake you could ever make, I’ve made it! Everything and anything along the way.

 

Do you have any advice or anything else you want to say?

Really, it’s incredible when you look back. Stick up for yourself and remind yourself you’re gifted.