In October 2023 I started my first independent position as a assistant professor in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick. My research focuses on host–pathogen interactions, with a current emphasis on soluble proteins from several RNA viruses that cause global pandemics or localised epidemics. I am a structural biologist by training and use a range of in vitro and cell biology techniques to inform our structural work. In 2015 I graduated from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, after completing my PhD investigating how a plant chaperone protein reactivated stalled Rubisco complexes. I then moved to my first postdoc position at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, where I investigated how the antiviral restriction factor TRIM5α assembled to block HIV infection. From 2017 until my move to Warwick I was at the University of Oxford with Jonathan Grimes and Ervin Fodor, investigating the structure and function of the influenza virus polymerase. My time in Oxford significantly shaped my future research directions, where I learnt cryo-electron microscopy and worked with RNA viruses for the first time. For several years at Oxford I was the Emanoel Lee Junior Research Fellow at St Cross College in addition to my postdoctoral role. A consistent theme throughout my academic career has been a strong desire to collaborate across a wide range of research topics, and these connections continue to be central to my group’s current research goals.