I am excited about the relationship between human nutrition, the microbiome, and metabolic health. I have learned that human physiology alone cannot explain our energy intake and its downstream effects -- an entire community of microbes must be accounted for! I will be pursuing a senior thesis that investigates the ability of gnotobiotic mice to support human microbiomes versus the microbiomes of our closest living relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas. I hope to then utilize these 'primatized' mice to investigate whether the human microbiome has co-evolved unique functional capacities related to diet with human physiology and biology.