In May 2026, Victoria joined the Wallace Lab as a Postdoctoral Researcher in Bio-Upcycling following the completion of her doctorate in the lab of Prof. Dr. Tobias J. Erb at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany. During her PhD, she advocated for a deeper study of the first microbe with a complete polyethylene terephthalate depolymerization and monomer assimilation pathway, Ideonella sakaiensis (now renamed Pseudoideonella sakaiensis). By closing its genome, biochemically analyzing its transcription factors associated with TPA uptake, and working with the FRO Cultivarium to identify a replicating vector for the bacterium, she took steps towards the advancement of the microbe as a SynBio chassis. With over 10 years of research experience in fields ranging from host-pathogen interactions, synthetic biology, and structural biology, she brings a diversity of experimental techniques into her research and a wide-ranging curiosity about life on Earth. She is currently working on the microbial upcycling of plastics into pharmaceutical drugs through the CIRCBIONET consortium using both Pseudomonas putida and Bacillus subtilis as genetically-tractable hosts. However, she remains fascinated by the challenge of engineering non-model microbes for bioremediation and other environmental benefits.

In her spare time, Victoria loves hiking, hot yoga, traveling, hunting down exotic ingredients for dinner parties, and reading about the conservation of the natural world.