I lived in seven different national parks, each in different states across the United States, until I moved to the city to go to college. My father worked for the U.S. Park Service and every time he was promoted, we would drive to a new park to live.

As a child, my favorite park was always the one that I had just left. Now, I lean towards Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. During the summer, we swam daily in mountain streams. In the winter, we skied every weekend until the snow was gone. Even before we could drive, my friends and I had the freedom to take off backpacking anytime school was out.

2010. That puts me in the class of 2014, but I'm not done with my studies yet.

I wanted more opportunities to mentor students than I had in my previous faculty position, and I hoped to return to the intermountain west. I really enjoyed my interview with the School of Life Sciences, and I saw opportunities for new collaborations.

B.A. in biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. I was initially admitted into engineering, but I fell in love with biochemistry. My senior year I did an independent study project in Allen Wilson’s lab where they used biochemical approaches to study evolution. At the same time, I worked part-time in an air-quality lab at the California Department of Public Health. When I started my graduate studies at the University of Colorado, Boulder, I wanted to be a cell biologist. However, the molecular biology experiments were more fun, so for my Ph.D. dissertation I investigated how the genetic code is accurately translated to make proteins. My Ph.D. degree is in molecular biology. The research I do now is usually called developmental genetics.

I liked science and math while I was growing up. Through a series of random opportunities combined with good and bad teachers at key moments, I was drawn to laboratory research. I love solving puzzles and unexpected discoveries. I get both of these as a basic research scientist. As I pursued my profession, I enjoyed the mentoring aspect of leading a research lab. That’s what drew me to the combination of research and teaching in a university.

My lab investigates how cells work together to build and maintain functional tissues. One of the biggest questions in biology is how a ball of identical cells can grow, diversify, and reorganize to build an animal capable of living on its own. This happens again and again, and each new individual has the same body plan as any other member of its species. To understand how this works, my lab studies the ways that cells communicate among themselves so that their behaviors are coordinated to build the body plan and maintain the function of each component tissue.

My lab studies fruit flies, which some people think is useless. In their opinion, biomedical research will be faster and more effective if scientists would just focus on humans. But humans and fruit flies are both made up of cells, and the genes that are needed to build human guts or human brains are basically the same as the genes needed to build fruit fly guts or fruit fly brains. What we learn about these little flies builds a conceptual framework that other scientists use to understand how human tissues work, and where things go wrong in pathological conditions. Our research builds the groundwork so that biomedical research can move faster.

Don’t over-plan your life. Give yourself some flexibility to take advantage of unexpected opportunities. Give yourself some breathing room to recover from unexpected setbacks. Both will come to you whether you want them or not.

I’m a night owl.

Whenever I have time, I go hiking or backpacking in the mountains and canyons nearby. At home, I am a bonsai enthusiast and an avid reader.