Born in France, I was raised in a bilingual household in the countryside and traveled to the U.S. just before attending high school. I received my Batchelor’s degree from a small liberal arts school in Florida (Eckerd College) and my Master's Degree in Biology from Tufts University in Boston. In light of my interest for teaching, learning and research, I attended Emory University, in Georgia, for my Ph.D. in Immunology and Molecular Pathogenesis. My thesis research was based on incompatible transfusions of red blood cells and have yielded more questions than answers! I later worked in 2 post doctoral laboratories. I studied the immune reaction to influenza in mice and to vaccinations in human clinical trials at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), within the Immunology team, Influenza Division. I later returned to my alma mater (Emory) and joined a microbiology laboratory to study the Influenza pathogen itself in more depth in cell culture. I consider myself an educator and an immunologist with a specialty in virology and red blood cell immunology. 

I have shifted my research interests to include biology education. I have taught classes since 2008 and aim to form communities within my classrooms; a focus of my lab (1 graduate and 4 undergraduate students). Outreach opportunities and igniting projects are always of interest. An example project was initiated with 2 Freshmen students who wanted to help during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. We designed a test strip to help with the diagnosis of Ebola infections and was submitted by the university as a patent application to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. A similar test was later used by the World Health Organization (WHO) during the crisis. No idea is too small.