What is your current role? Tell us a bit about your line of research

I am currently a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, MD. My research focuses on the molecular mechanisms of autophagy as an intracellular route for pathogen defense and innate immunity. My current project aims to understand how activation of the STING pathway induces a unique form of lipidation that may mediate cell autonomous antiviral defense.

What are you excited about in science communication?

I am very excited about the progress we are making as a scientific community to achieve open access to our research world-wide. With this, I am also excited about the ongoing critical examination of the publication system and whether the current processes we use to disseminate our research are still effective in modern day for scientific progress. There are many initiatives now asking important questions and actually innovating feasible solutions to improve the way we share our research, such as through preprinting and open and collaborative peer review. As an early career researcher, this mass movement we are currently seeing very much encourages me that we will soon break through some critical barriers and achieve a more fair and open system for scientific communication.

Why did you choose to participate in the ASAPbio Fellows program?

ASAPbio is one of the organizations that is making real progress in preprinting as a solution to the barriers of open access and timeliness in our current publication process. I was interested in joining the Fellows program to learn more about preprinting and be a part of a community that is actively working towards resolving systemic issues that are impeding scientific progress. I have already learned more about how the current publication system works, how preprinting can improve scientific communication, and how I can help to affect change and adoption of preprints at the local level. I am happy to now be a part of such an enthusiastic, thoughtful community dedicated to open science through the Fellows program.

Ask me about…

Cell biology, microscopes, philosophy, in general, and philosophy of science, continual progress in society and science, coffee beans, all types of music.