Alison has a B.Sc (Hons) in Pharmacology (2007) and a PhD (2012) from the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the UK. In 2013 Alison moved to Carmine Settembre’s lab at the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) in Pozzuoli, Naples, where she pursued post-doctoral studies in the role of autophagy in protein trafficking and disease formation. In 2017 she continued her post-doctoral studies in Ludger Johannes’ lab at the Institute Curie in Paris, France, to study Retro-2, an inhibitor of intracellular trafficking, and advanced bioimaging to study protein trafficking using Lattice light-sheet microscopy. Alison’s expertise lie in the use of advanced microscopy to study protein trafficking and autophagy, including Lattice light-sheet microscopy, scanning and spinning disc confocal fixed and live cell microscopy, TIRF and electron microscopy. Her team works with interdisciplinary collaborators on a theme combining experience from across her career: studying protein trafficking and ER exit to understand the effects of secretory pathway modulation on cell homeostasis and disease.

Alison is a member of the Italian association of cell and developmental Biologists (ABCD), Club ExoEndo and on the board of the Royal Belgian Society for Microscopy (RBSM). She is also a co-organiser of the bi-annual FEBS/EMBO summer school on Membranes and their lipids and proteins in organelle biogenesis, and the ER International Symposium held at Institut Jaques Monod, Paris.

SUSTAINABILITY

Alison has driven the sustainability initiative at the University of Namur. The “Green team” is composed of members from across the Department of Biology and Faculty of Medicine, to identify problem areas and put into action a series of sustainable practices across the university. This initiative has now been taken on by the university to work also at an infrastructure level.