I am a Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) researcher and first-year PhD. student in the Genetics and Genomics Home Area of the UCLA Graduate Programs in Bioscience. In 2021, I received my B.A. in Molecular Biology from Pomona College, where I developed a love for scientific research and became curious about leveraging scientific discoveries for the health and well-being of my indigenous community. Lately, this curiosity has blossomed into a passion for developing cutting-edge genomic tools. This past month I joined the Jacobsen Lab at UCLA, where I plan to pursue this passion developing novel gene editing tools as a member of the Tiny-CRISPR team.
