Biography

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Biology of the Memorial University of Newfoundland. I am working in a small berry improvement program at St. John’s Research and Development Center of the Agriculture and Agri-food Canada with the goal to contribute to the development of “better berries” that can lead to a healthier and happier world. One area of my research is the genetic diversity analysis of blueberry. I am using phylogenetic analysis to figure out the relatedness among several types of blueberries and association mapping with the antioxidant properties to identify the genes involved in deciding antioxidant contents in blueberry. In lingonberry, I am working to develop efficient micropropagation techniques. I am testing various hormones and media compositions and evaluating the distinct types of bioreactors for micropropagation. On top of that, I am also looking at the genetic and epigenetic variations in micropropagated lingonberries by using molecular and bioinformatic tools.