B.A. with Honors, Biology. Colby College. Maine, USA.

Fini was an undergraduate at Colby College, where she studied the genetic sex determination of the Large Milkweed Bug (Oncopeltus fasciatus) in Dr. David Angelini’s lab (http://web.colby.edu/aphanotus/). She also conducted some studies on Bumble Bee gut microbiota and organic chemistry in Dr. Dasan Thamattoor’s lab: http://web.colby.edu/dmthamat/. Through her work in the Angelini lab, she became very interested in genetic pathways and their evolution. She was fascinated by the diversity of life-forms around us and how different phenotypes develop. As a PhD student, Fini continued studying how genetic pathways give rise to organismic form and how they evolve to produce diversity. She joined the Extavour lab through the OEB graduate program in 2020. Despite the coronavirus pandemic preventing her from joining the lab physically in Boston, she performed an extensive literature search that revealed a number of novel mechanisms regulating ovarian development in insects.

Le, N.N.T.; Just, J.; Pankauski, J.M.; Rablen, P.R.; Thamattoor, D.M. Ring Expansion of Alkylidenecarbenes Derived from Lactams, Lactones, and Thiolactones into Strained Heterocyclic Alkynes: A Theoretical Study. Molecules 2019, 24, 593.