I earned a BSc (Hons) in Microbiology and Biochemistry from St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, India in 2005, followed by a MSc by Research in Life Sciences in 2006 and a PhD in Medical Microbiology in 2012, both from the University of Edinburgh and under the supervision of Prof. Ian R. Poxton. During my postgraduate studies, I conducted research on Clostridium difficile, studying expression of the toxin genes, immune responses to various bacterial proteins and the effects of disinfectants on the viable bacteria and spores, all with the aim to identify differences between strains that belonged to five different ribotypes and demonstrated variable pathogenesis in humans. I then conducted vaccine related research, first at the Institute of Cell Biology, University of Edinburgh with Dr. Garry Blakely and then at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the lab of Prof. Brendan Wren. With Dr. Blakely, I worked to develop a novel oral vaccination strategy against diarrhoeal diseases using a synthetic biology approach in Bacteroides fragilis, which was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In Prof. Wren's lab, I joined a team aiming to develop veterinary glycoconjugate vaccines using Protein Glycan Coupling Technology and mainly studied N-linked glycosylation in the porcine pathogen Actinobacillus pleuropneumoniae. I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the in the lab of Prof. Mark P. Stevens at The Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh. My previous research aimed to understand the spatio-temporal dynamics and host-pathogen interactions during Salmonella enterica infections in cattle, in order to inform the design of vaccines or other control strategies and thus improve animal welfare and food safety. I helped to develop methods to define the host cell tropism of S. enterica, study the fate of intracellular bacteria and assess host responses to infection. I also developed a mass-paralled whole genome sequencing approach to study the ability of different serovars of S. enterica to colonise and survive within the bovine lymphatic system, and used another deep sequencing approach – TraDIS – to study the bacterial genes which aid lymphatic survival. I currently conduct collaborative research with Prof. Wren’s lab at the LSHTM to evaluate the efficacy of glycoconjugate vaccines against Campylobacter jejuni in chickens and am working to develop alternative vaccination strategies to reduce the burden of this pathogen in poultry production and thus improve food safety.