Biography: I studied BSc Biochemistry at University of Nottingham and then a PhD studying the immunology of the pre-erythrocytic stages of malaria in the liver at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the laboratory of Dr Julius Hafalla and co-supervised by Prof Eleanor Riley. I joined the Marti group in Glasgow as a postdoc in. November 2018 to investigate Plasmodium in the skin. In November 2023, I have been awarded a Wellcome Early Career Award Fellowship to further investigate Plasmodium gametocytes in the skin by intravital imaging.

Research Interests: During my PhD I studied the immune responses to pre-erythrocytic stages of malaria, where sporozoite forms of the parasite are injected by the mosquito and travel to the liver to develop within hepatocytes. Here I dissected the CD8+ T cell responses to sporozoite and liver stage antigens. In the Marti Lab, I have been investigating where the sexual forms of the parasite, gametocytes, reside in the skin and bone marrow and how they ensure their return to the mosquito. I am particularly interested in the interactions between the parasite and its mammalian and mosquito hosts. In my Fellowship, I am currently investigating the processes that lead to successful transmission in very low burden infections, using intravital imaging and various histological methods to observe gametocytes in the skin.