Postdoctoral fellow · Harwell Lab, UCSF
I study how gene regulatory layers are coordinated as cells commit to identity in the developing brain: chromatin state, transcription, RNA processing and protein-level regulation. And how distinct disruptions to that coordination converge on shared neurodevelopmental vulnerability.
About
I'm a developmental neurobiologist and postdoctoral fellow in the Harwell Lab at UCSF. My work asks how gene regulatory systems are coordinated during brain development: how chromatin state, transcription, RNA processing and protein-level regulation act together as cells commit to an identity, rather than as separate layers studied one at a time.
Before UCSF I completed a PhD at Cardiff University's MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics, an MSc in Neuroscience at King's College London, and a BSc in Biological Sciences at Bournemouth University.
Research
Three angles on one problem: how regulatory coordination is established, carried forward through developmental time, and lost.
Coupling
Cell identity is set by chromatin accessibility, enhancer activity and transcriptional output behaving as one system rather than in sequence. I ask how those layers stay coupled, along with RNA processing and protein-level regulation, through the cell-state transitions of cortical development.
Inheritance
Progenitor states are transient; their consequences are not. I ask how early regulatory decisions are propagated through molecular memory mechanisms to constrain the later maturation of neurons and glia, long after the state that specified them has resolved.
Convergence
Genetically distinct perturbations converge on overlapping neurodevelopmental phenotypes. I ask where those trajectories intersect: which regulatory disruptions cascade across molecular and cellular scales to generate shared vulnerability.
Approaches
Four complementary lines of work, from multi-layer measurement through to causal perturbation.
Profile chromatin accessibility, factor binding and transcriptional output from the same developing tissue, so regulatory changes can be compared directly across layers instead of inferred between experiments.
Resolve regulatory programs across progenitor and differentiated states, linking the enhancer repertoire active at each point in a trajectory to the fates those cells go on to adopt.
Targeted perturbation of specific regulatory elements to establish causality, testing whether an element is required for a developmental transition rather than merely correlated with it.
Integrate genomic, transcriptomic and proteomic datasets computationally to recover the regulatory networks that no single assay resolves on its own.
Education
PhD, Neuroscience
Cardiff University · MRC Centre for Neuropsychiatric Genetics and Genomics
MSc, Neuroscience (Developmental Neurobiology)
King's College London
DistinctionBSc, Biological Sciences
Bournemouth University
First Class HonoursPublications
CV & contact
Please feel free to reach out. The full CV here.