Hello! I’m Eleanor, a 24-year-old English girl trying to escape Brexit. I love keeping fit via a variety of sports, especially Aussie rules football, and I recently obtained my black belt in karate. In addition to physical past times, I combine my love of nature with my creative side through landscape photography.

Following my Biomedical Science bachelors, I worked as a study-supervisor in the ELISA department of a CRO, overseeing testing of an immunotherapeutic drug. After a year at Covance, I began my masters in Infection and Immunity at Utrecht University. Here, I carried out two projects, one at University Medical Centre Utrecht on immunotherapeutics and one at the Karolinska where I identified bacterial strains inhibitive to MRSA. I was then employed in Stockholm to continue this project.

During my masters, I wrote a literature review on Orthobunyaviruses and became intrigued by the endless interplaying factors influencing vector-borne virus outbreaks. Outside my studies I have a keen interest in neuroscience, reading many popular science books on the topic, so a PhD on the neurotropism of vector-borne viruses seemed the perfect fit!

In this project I aim to identify and prioritise neurotropic viruses and use this information to inform and aid other projects within the consortium. I also aim to use my PhD as an opportunity to further develop my scientific skills and network.