Our research focuses on the study of the cis-regulatory landscape of the human genome, particularly in the context of early development. This landscape includes, but is not restricted to, many of the thousands of genomic regions that are conserved (and ultraconserved) between human and other species and whose functions remain unknown. Our major interests are to (1) study the origins and evolution of the cis-regulatory landscape, (2) understand how these regions encode their individual as well as combined roles, (3) understand how they contribute to human disease, and (4) understand how they contribute to species adaptation. Projects in my lab include the genomic basis of human specific traits, evolution and development of different human tissues, genomic causes of human limb defects, and much computational tool building and discovery associated with understanding the human cis-regulatory landscape.