Message from the Director
Associate Professor
Graduate School: Ph.D., UT Southwestern Medical Center, 2004
Postdoctoral Training: UT Southwestern Medical Center
As a graduate of the Cell and Molecular Biology (CMB) program at UT Southwestern, I am acutely aware of the importance of establishing a challenging and nurturing educational environment that prepares students to achieve their professional goals. To this end, my mission is to provide the most up-to-date curriculum, opportunities to build relationships with program students and faculty, guidance for the timely completion of thesis work, and career advice during graduate school and beyond.
The cornerstone of the CMB training program is strong involvement of faculty in the development of trainees. Our faculty are committed to providing high-quality coursework and journal clubs based on cutting edge scientific questions. Faculty actively participate in weekly WIPS and provide students with the opportunity for individual mentoring on presentation skills. In addition, the program offers a unique grant writing course, where students work with a dedicated cadre of faculty to develop skills for identifying innovative research questions and developing research plans for their effective resolution. Student-faculty interactions are further fostered during annual retreats, afternoon social hours, and faculty open-door policies. In addition, students are encouraged to present their research at local and national meetings to engage with the greater scientific community.
Broadly, research in the program is centered on the signaling mechanisms that regulate cellular and physiological processes. Faculty and students in the program pursue discovery at the atomic, molecular, cellular, whole animal and systems levels of resolution thereby exposing students to a range of biological contexts, experimental platforms, and model systems. Graduates leave the program with a deep understanding of the most pressing questions in biomedical science as well as the innovative approaches used to address them. Our graduates are successful as leaders in a variety of scientific careers in academic and industrial settings, medical writing, patent law, and teaching.
