About Me

I am a PhD Candidate at UC Davis in the Department of Plant Pathology working under the supervision of Dr. Shahid Siddique. I study plant parasitic nematodes which are microscopic pests that cause billions of dollars in crop losses every year.

In my work, I blend bioinformatics, genomics and molecular biology to understand how these parasites invade plant roots, manipulate host defenses and survive inside the host plant.

Before starting my PhD, I received MSc in Plant Biotechnology specializing in Functional Genomics at Wageningen University. Interested in my CV? You can find it here.

What I do and Why

I aim to bridge the gap between bioinformatics (how the data speaks to you) and biology (how can you make sense of the data biologically). I love working with messy genomic data and turning it into clear, biologically meaningul stories about how organisms function. My current interests include:

• Genome Assembly and Annotation
• Comparative Genomics and evolutionary analysis
• Building Reproducible Data Analysis Pipelines
• Deep Learning for Genomics
• Molecular Biology approaches to validate computational findings

Beyond Academia

Outside of academia, I have worked on community-driven projects focused on sustainable agriculture and public health in Nepal.

• As a part of WASH (Water, Sanitation and Health) and sustainable livelihoods initiative, I worked with local communities to improve their access to clean water, and led workshops with women’s cooperatives to promote women’s health and hygiene.
• I also led a team of volunteers to support farmers in building small sustainable businesses through high-value vegetable production in rural Nepal.