Owning THE talyssa.com domain has felt like a massive responsibility because whatever I choose to populate this little website with will end up being the most explicit representation of myself on the world wide web. In its first iteration, talyssa.com was a digital garden (more on this later). In its second, it became a linktree-esq catch all that I was able to link on all my social media platforms. Now, the time has come for it to evolve into something more comprehensive.
I tend to compartmentalize my interests; keep work as work, and play as play. But after finishing my PhD, I'm feeling more inclined towards portraying myself as my whole self. All of my interests and hobbies inevitably inform my work and vice versa, and I think thats something I should give more credit to!
Thus, this portfolio was born. Within it, you'll find almost everything I've worked on and all that I'm interested in. I intend for this website to grow and evolve as I continue to gain new experiences and opportunities.
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About me
About this website
About me
Professionally speaking, I obtained my PhD in Microbiology from the University of California, Riverside in 2025. This was only possible because of how deeply I fell in love with biological research during my undergraduate tenure at Loyola Marymount University. The scientific process is wonderful to me; I love asking questions, I love the creative process of experimental design, I love figuring out how to get closer to an answer. Though microbiology has been the unifying motif in all of my research thus far, I've had the pleasure of exploring so many diverse topics in plant biology, fermentation sciences, immunology, and ecology. The interdisciplinary nature of microbiology has always served me well.
Beyond academia, I simply like learning new things!!! I journal often to learn more about myself (and less often when the realizations start to scare me). I have a ton of fun trying new workouts that push me to learn more about my body (and my mind, actually). I read plenty because it teaches me more about everything. I love indulging in a good DIY craft for the sake of experimenting and for the freedom of making bad art. In all my time spent taking science really seriously, staying curious and never shying away from exploring new things is the most exciting scientific pursuit I could ever experience.
About this website
This website (and all of my others) is a product of wanting more out of social media and the internet as a whole.
After a deep dive into the work of
The aesthetic is intentionally clunky and inspired by the long lost Prof.Dr. style of Ye Olde Internet. Its essence is perhaps inspired by the old, kooky tenured professor as well; an overly-comprehensive mishmash of everything I care to share with the world. I did a little bit of a cheat and used an html layout generator for the basic structure (I hate building up multiple columns from scratch). Everything else is made with the aforementioned love and trial and error. Dissimilarly to my old talyssa.com iterations, this one is getting built locally and then pushed to a Github repo. I use netlify to deploy my websites, but I don't know much about that part, honestly, and have no real informed loyalty to the process (I mention that in case any visitor of mine has any other suggestions). On that note, my repo is technically open sourced which means you can completely copy my whole vibe if you desire... I encourage everyone to try their hand at a personal website, but it's more fun to really make it your own. Change it up! Take some risks! Do what represents you best.
Credits:
Basic layout pulled from petrapixel's layout generatorWordart from makewordart.com