Birds appear to effortlessly perform maneuvers that are outside the capabilities of our most advanced aircraft. If we could integrate avian maneuverability into UAVs, we could open the door for a new era of flight: one in which flight is not constrained to runways, humans can be transported quickly across large city centers, and disaster … Continued
Our work aims to determine how the lining of the uterus regenerates each month after menstruation. On any given day, approximately 800 million people around the world are menstruating. Menstruation involves the shedding of large portions of the uterine lining, and we know very little about how the tissue recovers from this extensive, repeated damage. … Continued
Early-life immune exposures can profoundly impact lifelong health. A greater understanding of fetal immunity has the potential to help us understand health and disease during gestation, as a neonate, and every stage of life afterward. There are gaps in knowledge regarding cell types that are unique to the fetus, including the nucleated red blood cell. … Continued
Cells are complex systems that integrate biochemical signals with mechanical forces in order to carry out important physiological processes, such as cell growth, division, and movement. Compared to eukaryotic cells, we know very little about how forces are generated and transduced within prokaryotic systems. My research proposal leverages recent advances in my lab, which allow … Continued
Marine microeukaryotes navigate constant fluctuations in food, friends, and foes to produce and to distribute crucial resources that support oceanic life and impact global climate. The molecular mechanisms that enable microeukaryotes to perform multifaceted functions in dynamic environments remain unexplored, primarily due to a historic inability to recapitulate environmental behaviors and to perform genetics. My … Continued
Mammals have forged an evolutionary alliance with commensal microbes that harmoniously live on barrier surfaces and have profound effects on host health and disease. Despite their residence on epithelial barriers, surprisingly little is known about how commensals influence epithelial stem cells (EpSCs), which continuously maintain epithelia throughout our lifetime. By taking cues from their microenvironment … Continued
Archaea represent the third domain of life on Earth. Even though these enigmatic microorganisms are prevalent within and around us, they have been constantly overlooked and, thus, remain poorly characterized. The overarching goal of my research program is to build the infrastructure to study methanogens, a subset of Archaea that have a considerable impact on … Continued
Individuals exhibit extensive differences in response to infection. Understanding how and why immune responses vary would enable us to predict responses to infection and autoimmune diseases. My research investigates why innate immune responses vary across individuals, focusing on differences in gene expression. I previously showed that several immune genes are controlled by regulatory elements derived … Continued
I am a statistician by training, and the biological phenomena captured in high-throughput genomic data motivate me to develop new statistical methodologies. The central aim of my research program is to build machine learning algorithms and statistical tools that aid in the understanding of how nonlinear interactions between genetic features affect the architecture of complex … Continued
My work seeks a fundamental understanding of how stem cell regulatory networks process internal and external signals into cell-fate decisions. In the long term, I aim to construct synthetic human tissues directly from embryonic stem cells and to help build a new field focused on forward cell-fate engineering. I apply quantitative experimental approaches with mathematical … Continued