I was born and raised in Calgary, Canada. Upon graduating high-school, I enrolled at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, Canada and obtained a BSc. in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry in 2010. After this, I spent some time in industry working in the field of environmental assessment before beginning graduate studies with Dr. Robert Holt in 2012. I am currently a doctoral candidate with the Genome Science + Technology Graduate Program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada and am conducting my thesis research at Canada's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, a department of the BC Cancer Agency, also located in Vancouver.