I completed my BSc and BScMedSci (Hons) degrees in Human Genetics at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. After a 5 month stint playing field hockey in Northern Ireland, I returned to Stellenbosch and joined the Entomology Department to grind bugs! My MSc project back home in South Africa aims to improve the current postharvest sterilisation protocol for the false codling moth (FCM, Thaumatotibia leucotreta) by integrating insect physiology and biochemistry, to gain a further understanding into the mechanisms of insect thermal tolerance under modified atmospheres. FCM is a pest in the citrus and deciduous fruit industries in South Africa, and has recently been found in Canada. I am currently at UWO in the Sinclair Lab on a 5 month research exchange during which I will be using woolly bear caterpillars to investigate transmembrane ion distribution during recovery from freezing.