Biography

My MSc research was on giant viruses in 308 freshwater lakes across continental Canada. I was particularly interested in their genome evolution, which kept bringing me back to one question: how can giant viruses undergo such prolific gene duplication, and what evolutionary limits do they face at both the genomic and protein levels? Giant viruses accumulate genes at a scale that seems almost unconstrained, and I found myself increasingly interested in why and how this is possible.

Research interests

My curiosity led me to the Landry lab, where I study molecular complexification following gene duplication. I’m asking a similar question at a different scale: what features of a protein’s structure make some evolutionary paths accessible and others closed off, and what evolutionary contingencies shape the emergence of new functions and molecular interactions?