I have managed to move between a number of countries during my career. I am from Zimbabwe, and was educated in South Africa and the United Kingdom. Specifically, I received my BSc from the University of Cape Town and my BSc (Hons) and MSc from the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science at Rhodes University.

It was while I was working on my MSc (stock identification of a marine species) that I became interested in genetics. That interest took me to the University of Wales, Swansea where I worked on kin selection in a shoaling fish species. After my PhD, I did a stint with the Fish Genetics Group, sponsored by the Overseas Development Administration, U.K, which supported aquaculture projects in the Philippines and India. I then moved to the University of Guelph in Canada, where I worked on the invasion genetics of zebra mussel in the Great Lakes and most recently, to Seattle.

At the Conservation Biology group at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA Fisheries (Seattle), I was able to fully develop my interests in integrating molecular genomics and quantitative genetics. I joined the faculty at the School of Aquatic &#amp; Fishery Sciences at the UW in 2001 and have become one of four members of the Marine Molecular Biotechnology Lab—a College facility that houses researchers in Oceanography and SAFS.