about

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Plant Sciences at the University of California, Davis, working in the Monroe Lab. I recently completed my Ph.D. in Plant Biology at UC Davis (2021–2026) under the guidance of Dr. J. Grey Monroe.

My research sits at the intersection of evolutionary genomics, plant biology, and computational biology. During my Ph.D., I studied the evolutionary and functional consequences of loss-of-function genetic variation in plants — from Arabidopsis thaliana to cassava and diploid wheat — and developed computational pipelines that link natural loss-of-function alleles to trait variation and adaptation. As a postdoc, I am now studying somatic mutations in cassava clones, using high-quality HiFi genome assemblies of clonal accessions from various countries to date the historical spread of these clones.

Before UC Davis, I completed dual bachelor's degrees in Plant Science & Technology and English (Translation) at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and then conducted master's-level research in the Maloof Lab at UC Davis.

Outside the lab, I am an amateur photographer, mostly interested in instant and film photography. You can find a selection of my work in the photography section, and my research in the science section.