Auri is a third year Surgery Research Fellow and joined the lab as a post-doc in July 2023. She grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico and moved to MA in 2012 to complete an MD/PhD. Her thesis research, in Marian Walhout’s lab, focused on the development of the nematode C. elegans as a model to identify and characterize host-microbe-drug interactions. She joined Duke in 2021 as a General Surgery Resident. She is interested in studying diet-independent host-microbe metabolite exchange and working at the intersection between surgery, the microbiome, and host metabolism. Outside the lab (or the hospital wards), she greatly enjoys pilates, home improvement and pretending to like golf with her amazing husband.