I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Louisville and serve as the Cytometry Core Director at the Christina Lee Brown Envirome Institute.  I have a long-standing interest in the cardiovascular toxicity of tobacco products and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Since my early postdoctoral training, I have been studying cardiovascular toxicity of various tobacco product such as conventional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes, hookah and smokeless tobacco. During my early postdoctoral training, the American Heart Association Tobacco Regulation and Addiction Center fellowship introduced me to tobacco regulatory science and sparked my interest in tobacco-related research. My fellowship project focused on examining biomarkers of exposure and cardiovascular harm associated with tobacco products in both humans and experimental animals.

My later years of postdoctoral training I became interested in VOCs in the context of environmental pollution. Because atherosclerosis is the main underlying cause of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and the leading cause of death, I have developed an interest in learning how tobacco products and environmental pollutants exposure may aggravate this disease. Throughout my postdoctoral training, I also developed expertise in flow cytometry since it is a valuable tool in toxicology and vascular biology. Following my promotion to Assistant Professor, I have taken on the responsibility of overseeing the flow cytometry and cytomics core. I specialize in studying rare cell populations in the blood and deep immunophenotyping.