Meghan is a PhD candidate in the Molecular and Cell Biology program at UC Berkeley. She received her B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Puget Sound in Washington. After graduating, Meghan worked as a research technician in the Priess lab at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center looking into the distribution and consequences of nuclear lipid droplets in Caenorhabditis elegans germ cells and intestinal cells. Her thesis work in the Welch lab seeks to combine genetic, biochemical, and microscopy approaches to study the evolution of actin-based motility within the Rickettsia genus of obligate intracellular bacteria by comparing the motility mechanisms and functions of a pathogenic species, R. parkeri, with an ancestral species, R. bellii.