Staff profile

I hold a degree in Biomedical Science and an MSc in Data Science from Durham University, where I am now continuing my work as a PhD student in Dr Marcos Quintela-Baluja’s group. My MSc thesis used bioinformatics tools to analyse DNA methylation signals from Oxford Nanopore long-read data, exploring whether strain-specific methylation motifs could help link plasmids to their bacterial hosts.

My PhD research sits at the intersection of microbiology and bioinformatics, focusing on the longitudinal surveillance of WHO priority pathogens, particularly E. coli in wastewater. I am interested in how mobile genetic elements contribute to the spread and maintenance of traits linked to antimicrobial resistance, disinfectant tolerance, heavy metal resistance, and wastewater survival. By tracking whether specific mobile elements repeatedly occur within particular E. coli lineages over time, my work aims to support more targeted approaches for monitoring strains carrying resistance to last-resort antibiotics.