I was born and raised in Tasmania, Australia. My first experience of research at the Australian Antarctic Division in my native Tasmania was a turning point that led me to move to Canberra to study at the Australian National University. I completed my honors research with Drs Ron Pace, Elmars Krausz and Tom Wydrzynski on near-infrared spectroscopy of Photosystem II, the intergral membrane protein responsible for oxygen evolution in photosynthesis. This in turn excited my interest in protein structure, and I moved to the University of Chicago to pursue my Ph.D. with Profs James Norris and Keith Moffat on time-resolved crystallography of the bacterial photosynthetic reaction center.

I continued my research on protein structure as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Prof. Johann Deisenhofer at UT Southwestern Medical Center. There I determined the first structure of an invertebrate thioester-containing protein, thioester-containing protein 1 from Anopheles gambiae TEP1, and a heterodimeric complex of leucine-rich repeat proteins LRIM1/APL1C that regulate TEP1 activity. As an Assistant Professor at Yale University (2010-17) and now Temple University School of Medicine I continue to analyze molecular mechanisms of complement-like immunity in insects and their roles in inflammation, autophagy, and transmission of vector-borne diseases.

Education

1998	B.Sc.(Hons.), Australian National University
2004	Ph.D., University of Chicago

Positions held

2004-10	Postdoctoral Fellow, Dept. of Biochemistry, UT Southwestern Medical Center
2010-	Assistant Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, Yale University

Publications

Click here to access my publication list at NCBI.

Honors and Awards

1993	National Undergraduate Scholarship, Australian National University
1998	University Medal in Chemistry, Australian National University
1998	Brian Ledley Scholarship, University of Chicago
2002	Burroughs Wellcome Interfaces Program Training Fellowship, University of Chicago
2004	Student Research Achievement Award, 48th Annual Biophysical Society Meeting
2004	Elizabeth Norton Prize for Excellence in Research, Chemistry Dept., University of Chicago
2008	Postdoctoral Poster Prize, 13th Annual Structural Biology Symposium, UTMB, Galveston
2009	Boomerang Award, Australian Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology