Erin is a synthetic biologist and environmental ecologist, whose research focuses on studying the impacts of plastic pollution on the environment, evaluating the impacts of plastic on human health, looking for microbes that have naturally evolved plastic degradation capabilities, and engineering microbes that can be used for plastic recycling/upcycling. Erin has conducted research on expeditions along the California coast, around the Cayman Islands, and in the Puerto Rico Trench, where she used the Alvin submersible to collect samples from the bottom of the ocean.
Erin is also a wet lab coach for a high school iGEM (International Genetically Engineered Machine) team whose past projects have focused on chrysene and PFAS remediation and plastic degradation in marine microbes.
