I am a scientist at the CHEO Research Institute and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Ottawa. I am curious about vitamin and cofactor metabolism, about how cells move small molecules between compartments, and about what goes wrong in inborn errors of metabolism.

I have a PhD in genetics and molecular biology at UNICAMP in Brazil (with part of my studies done at the Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, UK). Following completion of my PhD I came to CHEO-RI in 2015 as a postdoctoral fellow, where I built the first animal models of pyridoxine-dependent epilepsy. As a Pew and Hereditary Disease Foundation postdoctoral fellow at MIT, in the Whitehead and Picower Institutes, I developed methods for isolating mitochondria from specific cell types in living animals, and used genome-wide CRISPR screening to identify SLC25A38 as the mitochondrial vitamin B6 transporter.

I started my own lab at CHEO in June 2023. I also founded and direct the CHEO-RI Mass Spectrometry Unit, and serve as the Team Captain for Biology Breakthrough, the Research Institute's fundamental science pillar.


I care a great deal about community, training and mentorship: about how people learn to do research, and about making that path navigable for scientists who did not grow up being told it was theirs.

Interests in the lab

· Mass spectrometry and metabolomics · functional genomics and CRISPR screening · cell biology and organellar profiling · molecular biology and genetic engineering · protein biochemistry and structural biology · bioinformatics 

Outside the lab

· science education · birdwatching  · photography  · painting  · volleyball · climbing  · ski  · hiking  · family time