I graduated from the R(D)SVS, University of Edinburgh, in 2005 and stayed on to complete a PhD studying host immune responses to parasites. I studied nutritional influences on neuroendocrine development as a Post-Doctoral Research Assistant at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal health and Comparative Medicine at the University of Glasgow, before moving to the USA to work on veterinary dermatology as a Post-Doctoral Research Associate with the Comparative Dermatology Research Group at the University of Florida’s College of Veterinary Medicine. While in the US I also studied the relationship between the gut microbiome, the immune system and cancer as a Visiting Research Scholar with the Jobin Research Laboratory at the University of Florida’s College of Medicine. I returned to Edinburgh in 2020 to join Christine Tait-Burkard’s research group studying commercially important viruses in pigs, and contributed to the group’s work on Covid-19 during the 2020 pandemic.

My research interests focus on the application of translational veterinary research which can be used to develop new and better treatments, preventions and diagnostic tools. I am also interested in the influences of the gut microbiome on host metabolism and immune responses, and the use of bacteriophages in veterinary medicine and climate change mitigation.