I am Co-director of the UK Food Safety Research Network.
I lead a research group at the Quadram Institute studying the foodborne microbe Listeria. I am a strong believer in multi-disciplinary collaborations to drive scientific innovation.
My background is in bacteriology specialising in phylogenetics. My previous role was Scientific Director General of Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory, where I co-chaired national and international public health networks that implemented genomics technologies into health systems.
Prior to this, my previous group in Canada were pioneers in using bacterial genomics to study outbreaks, including the large Canadian listeriosis outbreak in 2008 and then the Haitian cholera outbreak of 2010. These scientific and leadership accomplishments were recognised with the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.
Also in Canada, I was a board-certified Clinical Microbiologist and the hospital’s laboratory lead for Infection Prevention & Control.
This interest came from my PhD training at the University of Alberta under the mentorship of Dr. Diane Taylor, where I studied the genomics and cell biology of conjugative bacterial plasmids that carried antibiotic resistance traits. My thesis work was awarded the Izaak Killam Memorial Scholarship, the Canadian Society of Microbiologist’s Graduate Student Microbiologist of the Year Award, and the Governor General’s Gold Medal.
