B.Sc. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology. Northeastern University, Boston, USA

M.Sc. in Bioinformatics. Northeastern University, Boston, USA

As an undergraduate at Northeastern University, I developed my interest in marine biology and ecology through research in Steve Vollmer’s lab, where I investigated interactions between the coral microbiome and white band disease in the staghorn coral, Acropora cervicornis. I also worked at the Ocean Genome Legacy Center, studying methods for preserving marine tissue samples for genomic analyses. This work contributed to a co-authored publication on reducing DNA degradation during extraction from frozen tissue.

After graduation, I joined Angela DePace’s lab at Harvard University, where I studied transcriptional regulation during early development in Drosophila melanogaster. My research focused on how different domains of the transcription factor Bicoid contribute to enhancer activity and spatial gene expression. I combined molecular genetics and confocal imaging with computational analyses of gene expression and chromatin accessibility. During this time, I also completed my master’s degree in bioinformatics at Northeastern University.

Messner, E., Becker, L., DeSancHs, M. L., Soranno, E. A., Pianka, R., Pierce, C., Johnson, M., Falco Poulin, R., Appiah-Madson, H. J., Distel, D. L. (2025) Perish the thawed? EDTA reduces DNA degradaCon during extraction from frozen tissue. PLoS ONE. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0321872