Born in Jamaica, I attended Ardenne High School before migrating to the UK after my CXCs in 2006, where I completed a BSc in Medical Biochemistry (2012) at Leeds University. This was a lab-focused degree built on a biochemistry foundation, with elements of molecular biology, microbiology, immunology, virology, toxicology, and pharmacology. Upon completion, I migrated to New Zealand, where I completed an MSc (2014) and a PhD (2018) in Computational Biochemistry under the supervision of Associate Professors Jane Allison and Jack Flanagan. Drawing heavily on my undergraduate background in medical biochemistry, both degrees involved the use of molecular modelling to characterise protein–membrane interactions, yielding mechanistic insight into oncogenic cellular signalling systems and how their malfunctions lead to disease, particularly cancer, with the ultimate goal of structure-guided drug design.

Not long into the pandemic, I returned to Jamaica in 2020 to take up the position of research fellow at NPI. Here, I have applied my advanced knowledge of structural bioinformatics to further the understanding of natural products, their constituents, and how they are metabolized to produce a range of properties that can be exploited to generate unique pharmacological compounds to target disease. Furthermore, I have added to my range of computational techniques to introduce an in silico aspect to the in vitro and in vivo studies under various projects at the institute.