I am currently a Senior Research Associate in the University of Bristol working for Professor Gareth Jones on the NIH funded grant "Social stress, epigenetics, and immune function across bat lifespans". This multidisciplinary project aims to examine methylation profiles in bats to assess the epigenetic consequences of ageing in relation to social and reproductive stress. In addition, the immune profile response in RNA will examined after immune challenges.

Previously I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Odysys lab in UCD on the ERC project MolStressH2O (2023-2025), focusing on mutagenic effects in response to heat stress in ectotherms. I completed my PhD in 2022 in the evolutionary ecology of telomere variation in a long-lived mammal, the greater horseshoe bat in the Laboratory of Molecular Evolution and Mammalian Phylogenetics (UCD). I have a strong standing in molecular techniques, practical fieldwork (including non-invasive capture/sampling of bats), evolutionary theory and data analysis. In addition, I have developed my bioinformatic skills, developing and implementing computational pipelines for RNA-seq data analysis as well as genome mining.

My long-term research vision is to establish an independent program in ecological epigenetics, integrating molecular, eco-physiological, and epigenetic markers to uncover how species adapt to environmental stressors and how these changes influence life-history trade-offs.