About Me: I am a math teacher at Burncoat High School in Worcester, Massachusetts. I am a Worcester native, and graduated WPI in 2022 with a Mathematics B.S. and a minor in Computer Science. I started teaching in fall of 2022, and thoroughly enjoy working with students to help them discover the joys and sorrows of mathematics. My greatest successes in the classroom are when students reach an “a-ha” moment. I enjoy creating problems nearly as much as I enjoy solving them, and mathematics provides the perfect opportunity to do so. In the fall, I will be teaching Algebra 1 and AP Statistics. I have also taught Algebra 2, Statistics, and Financial Literacy in the past. Beyond teaching, I enjoy programming (mostly in Python), reading (mostly recreational mathematics, theology, and non-fiction), and hiking (mostly outside).
About the Lab: Shell Lab at WPI is a molecular biology lab studying how mycobacteria regulate gene expression and survive stressful conditions and antibiotics. The most notable mycobacterium is M. tuberculosis (Mtb), which is responsible for 7.5 million cases of tuberculosis a year, leading to 1.3 million deaths. When M. tuberculosis enter the lungs, the body does its best to rid itself of these bacteria, by subjecting the bacteria to hypoxia and low pH. You may think that all this stress would make the bacteria more sensitive to antibiotics, but the reverse is true – Mtb actually becomes less sensitive to antibiotics! The Shell lab is currently working on various projects related to the proteins in mycobacteria: discovering new proteins, figuring out how they work together, and most importantly, encouraging good health and wellbeing by furthering our understanding of a disease that ravages our most vulnerable populations.
Project Title: Investigating the Impact of a Novel RNA Degradation Protein (Sre) on Antibiotic Tolerance in Mycolicibacterium smegmatis
Weekly Updates:
- Week 1: This week, I got to meet with the Shell Lab and Abbey, my RET co-conspirator and another in-service teacher. We joined lab meeting and learned about all the different projects the Shell Lab is working on. After completing lab safety training, we got our coats and headed into the lab to start our first M. smegmatis cultures! We are currently culturing 4 strains of M. smegmatis – one wild type, which can be thought of as the “original” M. smegmatis, and three knockout strains, which lack the ability to produce Sre. Once we grow enough M. smegmatis, we will be able to test the efficacy of antibiotics against these 4 strains.
- Week 2: Coming soon!
- Week 3: Coming soon!
- Week 4: Coming soon!
- Week 5: Coming soon!
- Week 6: Coming soon!
Final Poster:
Lesson Plan: