Research Profile

Annie trained as a microbial ecologist in New Zealand under Professor Mike Taylor, with a PhD on the relevance of microbiome research in threatened species conservation. Her most impactful work to date was an experimental study highlighting the influence of management practices on the developing gut microbiome in kākāpō chicks, where it was apparent that supplemental feeding enabled the proliferation of atypical bacterial species, especially Lactobacillus, due to probiotic additives. By contrast, the removal of faecal material from nests by conservation staff had no significant nor observable effect on kākāpō chick health or gut microbiome development. Together, these insights provided invaluable knowledge to the Kākāpō Recovery Team that facilitated changes to current management practices. 
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Following her PhD, Annie worked with Associate Professor Kim Handley on the Genomics Aotearoa Environmental Metagenomics Team. During her tenure, Annie investigated salinity-driven niche differentiation in estuarine microbial communities and was heavily involved in nation-wide efforts to teach, and enable further research, in the metagenomics field. For her work, Annie was named Early Career Researcher of the Year for the University of Auckland's School of Biological Sciences.  
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Her current research in collaboration with Dr Katerina Guschanski explores the relationship between host genomics and the oral microbiome in a wild population during population decline and subsequent recovery. This project particularly aims to identify how decreasing genetic diversity leads to increased disease prevalence in a wild population of Scandinavian Brown Bears, and what role the microbiome plays in mitigating or exacerbating this phenomenon.