I’m a biologist, originally from Chile, from where I came to obtain my Master degree in San Diego, and fell in love with Southern California, because of the perfect mixture of great weather, diversity of environments, and a hot spot for research in all imaginable fields.
As a Ph.D. student at Dr. Kalyuzhnaya lab my work is focused on the root-associated microbiome of plants from arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Specifically, we aim to understand the role of the methanotrophic populations of those communities in the consumption of methane, which might be key to understand why deserts are sinks for this greenhouse gas.
In my free time I enjoy playing guitar, occasional painting, enthusiast sunset photographer, baking bread, and growing plants (pandemic trendy), and learning to surf (more on the learning part though). Before the pandemic I was a normal human being and used to hang out with my friends, which I’m hoping to be safe to do again soon!.