Robert E. Krumlauf, Ph.D., Scientific Director and Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from England’s National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, London, where he was head of the Division of Developmental Neurobiology. Dr. Krumlauf received a Ph.D. in developmental biology from Ohio State University.
Research Focus: Analysis of molecular pathways that regulate how the mammalian head, brain and nervous system are built, using a variety of vertebrate model systems

Academic Appointments: Professor, Departments of Anatomy & Cell Biology and of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine; Professor, The University of Kansas Neurosciences Graduate Program; Professor, Department of Oral Biology, The University of Missouri at Kansas City Dental School

Susan Abmayr, Ph.D., Associate Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the Pennsylvania State University where she served as Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics. She earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Rockefeller University and completed postdoctoral training in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard University under the direction of Professor Tom Maniatis.
Research Focus: Molecular genetics of cell fate specification and differentiation in Drosophila, using the embryonic development of the musculature as a model system

Academic Appointment: Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Peter Baumann, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute after completing a Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Thomas R. Cech at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Baumann received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and University College London (U.K.).
Research Focus: Functional analysis of telomeres and their roles in cellular immortality and cancer

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Marco Blanchette, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from a postdoctoral position with Dr. Donald C. Rio at the University of California at Berkeley where he was recipient of a Human Frontier Long-Term Fellowship. Dr. Blanchette received a Ph.D. degree in microbiology from the Université de Sherbrooke, Canada.
Research Focus: Functional genomic analysis of the mechanisms controlling alternative pre-mRNA splicing

Joan Conaway, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, where she was Associate Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and interim head of the program in molecular and cell biology. Dr. Conaway received her doctorate in cell biology from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Research Focus: Analysis of the molecular mechanism and regulation of gene transcription

Academic Appointment: Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Ron Conaway, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, where he was holder of the Chapman Chair in Medical Research. Dr. Conaway received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Research Focus: Analysis of the molecular mechanism and regulation of gene transcription

Academic Appointment: Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Chunying Du, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from a Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Xiaodong Wang at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. Dr. Du has a Ph.D. in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology from Iowa State University.
Research Focus: Investigation of “apoptosis,” or programmed cell death, in mammals toward the goal of understanding how disorders of this process cause human disease

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Jennifer Gerton, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Joseph DeRisi in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco. Dr. Gerton received a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology from Stanford University.
Research Focus: Genomic and genetic analysis of chromosome segregation and chromosome dynamics

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Matt Gibson, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Institute from a Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund postdoctoral fellowship with Norbert Perrimon at Harvard Medical School, and is the recipient of a 2006 Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Gibson received a Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of Washington in 2001.
Research Focus: Genetic analysis of mechanisms controlling signal transduction, cell proliferation and epithelial morphogenesis during Drosophila development.

Scott Hawley, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the University at California – Davis, where he was a professor of genetics in the Molecular and Cellular Biology section. Dr. Hawley earned a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Washington and completed postdoctoral training as a Helen Hay Whitney fellow at the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia.
Research Focus: Investigation of mechanisms that influence how chromosomes pair and segregate during meiosis using Drosophila (fruit fly) as an experimental system

Academic Appointments: Professor of Molecular and Integrative Physiology, School of Medicine, University of Kansas Medical Center; Adjunct Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Missouri Kansas City; Adjunct Professor of Undergraduate Program in Biology, The University of Kansas

Sue Jaspersen, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the laboratory of Dr. Mark Winey at the University of Colorado at Boulder where she was a Keck Foundation Fellow, a Helen Hay Whitney Fellow, and the recipient of a Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Career Development Award. Dr. Jaspersen holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of California at San Francisco and an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Georgetown University where she graduated summa cum laude.
Research Focus: Mechanism and regulation of spindle pole body duplication in budding yeast

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Linheng Li, Ph.D., Associate Investigator, came to the Stowers Institute from the University of Washington Medical Center, where he held a faculty appointment after completing postdoctoral training in the lab directed by Dr. Leroy Hood. Dr. Li earned his Ph.D. in molecular and cellular biology from New York University Medical School under the mentoring of Dr. Edward Ziff.
Research Focus: Investigation of molecular and genetic pathways controlling adult stem cell development in the hematopoietic and intestinal systems using transgenic and gene targeting animal model approaches.

Academic Appointment: Associate Professor, Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Rong Li, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute in July 2005 from Harvard Medical School where she served as Associate Professor of Cell Biology and principal investigator on several NIH research grants. She earned a Ph.D. in cell biology at the University of California, San Francisco with Dr. Andrew Murray and held a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fellowship as a postdoctoral associate with Dr. David Drubin at the University of California, Berkeley.
Research Focus: Mechanism of cell polarization and cell motility, biochemical basis of dynamics in the actin cytoskeleton, and how eukaryotic cells divide

Academic Appointment: Professor, Department of Molecular & Integrative Physiology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Ho Yi Mak, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Institute from a Human Frontier Science Program postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Gary Ruvkun, at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Mak received a Ph.D. degree in Molecular Pathology from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund and University College London (U.K.).
Research Focus: Genetic and molecular analysis on endocrine control of fat storage

Olivier Pourquie, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the position of director of research at the Developmental Biology Institute of Marseille, France. Dr. Pourquie received a Ph.D. at the National Institute of Agronomy in Paris.
Research Focus: Study of the segmentation clock in the presomitic mesoderm and molecular signals regulating vertebrate segmentation

Academic Appointment: Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the Saint Louis University School of Medicine where he was a Professor of Biochemistry and an Associate Director for Basic Sciences at the Saint Louis University Cancer Center. Dr. Shilatifard earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Georgia and the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine and completed postdoctoral training as a Jane Coffin Childs fellow at the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation.
Research Focus: Molecular pathway of leukemogenesis

Kausik Si, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the laboratory of Dr. Eric Kandel at Columbia University where he was a Jane Coffin Childs Fellow and a Francis Goelet Fellow in Neuroscience. Dr. Si earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and holds undergraduate and master's degrees in science from the University of Calcutta, India.
Research Focus: Role of synaptic protein synthesis in information acquisition and memory storage

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Paul Trainor, Ph.D., Associate Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from a research position at the National Institute for Medical Research at Mill Hill, London, where he completed postdoctoral training. Dr. Trainor has a Ph.D. in developmental biology from Children’s Medical Research Institute at the University of Sydney, Australia.
Research Focus: Investigation of the interactions between distinct tissues in the body and their regulation during normal development to reveal pathways that regulate normal cranial and facial development

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Jerry Workman, Ph.D., Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the Pennsylvania State University where he held the Paul Berg Professorship of Biochemistry and was an Associate Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Workman earned a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from the University of Michigan and completed postdoctoral training at the Rockefeller University with Professor Bob Roeder.
Research Focus: Study of the protein complexes that modify chromatin

Ting Xie, Ph.D., Associate Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute after completing a Howard Hughes Medical Institute postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Allan C. Spradling at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Dr. Xie received his Ph.D. from the Joint Graduate Program in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry of Rutgers University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.
Research Focus: Genetic and molecular analysis of stem cells and germ cell development in Drosophila and mouse

Academic Appointment: Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Ron Yu, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Stowers Institute from the laboratory of Dr. Richard Axel at Columbia University where he held a National Institutes of Health Mentored Research Scientist Award from the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Yu completed his undergraduate degrees in the Department of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology at Tsinghua University in Beijing and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Biophysical Studies at Columbia University.
Research Focus: How olfactory sensory information is detected, integrated, and processed in the brain to influence specific innate behaviors

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Julia Zeitlinger, Ph.D., Assistant Investigator, joined the Institute from the lab of Richard Young, Ph.D., at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at M.I.T., and was the recipient of a long-term postdoctoral fellowship from the Human Frontier Science Program. Dr. Zeitlinger earned a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg, Germany in 1999.
Research Focus: Analysis of the gene regulatory networks underlying cellular differentiation.

Bioinformatics

Arcady Mushegian, Ph.D., Director of Bioinformatics Center, joined the Stowers Institute from Akkadix Corporation in San Diego, where he led the bioinformatics program. Dr. Mushegian earned a doctorate in molecular biology at Moscow State University and received training at the University of Kentucky, University of Washington, and with Dr. Eugene Koonin at the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the US National Institutes of Health.
Research Focus: Computational analysis of genes and proteins

Academic Appointment: Professor, Department of Microbiology, Molecular Genetics & Immunology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Imaging

Paul M. Kulesa, Ph.D., Director of Imaging Center, joined the Stowers Institute after completing a Burroughs Wellcome Fund postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Dr. Scott E. Fraser at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Kulesa received a Ph.D. in applied mathematics under Dr. J.D. Murray at the University of Washington.
Research Focus: Cell migration in development and cancer

Academic Appointment: Assistant Professor, Department of Anatomy & Cell Biology, The University of Kansas School of Medicine

Proteomics

Michael Washburn, Ph.D., Director of Proteomics Center, joined the Stowers Institute from the Torrey Mesa Research Institute in San Diego where he was a Senior Staff Scientist in Proteomics. He earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry and environmental toxicology from Michigan State University before completing a postdoctoral fellowship with Professor John Yates, III, in the Department of Molecular Biotechnology at the University of Washington.
Research Focus: Quantitative proteomics and protein complex dynamics

Additional Academic Appointments

William Neaves, Ph.D., President & CEO
Academic Appointment: Professor of Medical Science, The University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Medicine

Leanne Wiedemann, Ph.D., Staff Scientist
Academic Appointment: Associate Professor, Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, The University of Kansas School of Medicine