I am interested in using my multidisciplinary background to help develop a deeper understanding of the organizing principles of biology and its very nature, and gain better understanding of life’s emergence on Earth and elsewhere. I have always been interested in understanding life, how it started on Earth or could start in different environments, and what makes it different to 'non-life'. This fascination with understanding life in the universe compelled me to study biochemistry at University College London (UCL) so that I might better understand how life, at least as it is here on Earth, works. I later went on to do my Ph.D. at UCL in prebiotic chemistry in order to help uncover the chemical processes potentially present at the start of life on Earth. I then did a postdoc at the Santa Fe Institute, working with Chris Kempes on the Agnostic Biosignatures project - a multi-institution NASA-funded project interested in understanding how to search for life in the universe without presupposing a particular biochemical framework. During this postdoc I worked on projects related to understanding what patterns or signatures life might generate universally by working towards understanding general principles of life; as well as how to detect proposed agnostic biosignatures using current technology.
