About Me
Academic Background
I'm a first-generation Albanian immigrant and student, and was brought up to value education from a very young age.
My interest in ecology and environmental science started during my second year Introduction to Ecology course at the University of Windsor, where I completed my Honours Bsc in Biological Sciences. There, I joined the lab of Dr. Trevor Pitcher, and completed my honours thesis on the thermal and abundance effects of eDNA detection using the imperiled Redside Dace as my study species.
I moved to the Maritimes for my MSc at the University of New Brunswick Saint John in Dr. Scott Pavey's lab. For my MSc project, I developed Cytochrome B eDNA qPCR assays for 20 freshwater fishes of ecological, economic, and Indigenous importance in Atlantic Canada. This work is in partnership with The Genomic Network for Fish Identification, Stress, and Health (GEN-FISH), a national project funded through a competitive grant awarded by Genome Canada. Broadly, our aim is to determine the location and abundance of Canada's 200+ freshwater fishes, and measure how they fare in the face of increasing Anthropogenic stressors.
My research interests revolve around the ways we can use molecular and genetic tools to understand how species are faring in the face of rapid climate change. I am greatly interested in the molecular and genetic bases behind evolutionary change, population genetics and structure, and the effects of environmental stressors on gene regulation and expression. I also have continuing interests in environmental nucleic acid (eDNA/eRNA) applications for non-invasive species detection and quantification. I'm interested in applying these concepts across a broad range of taxa, but have particular expertise in freshwater fishes.
Personal Life
Outside of academia, I spend my time being physically active, hiking and travelling. I also really enjoy film photography, hoarding house plants, being a self-proclaimed coffee connoisseur, and listening to podcasts.
Favourite places:
- Cape Town, South Africa
- Paros, Greece
- Oahu, Hawaii
- Pogradec, Albania