Division of Genetics & Genomics
People
Principal Investigator
Christopher A. Walsh, MD, PhD
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Chief, Division of Genetics and Genomics, Boston Children’s Hospital
Bullard Professor of Pediatrics and Neurology, Harvard Medical School
Director, Allen Discovery Center for Human Brain Evolution
Photo Credit: Scott Eisen/AP Images for HHMI
The Evolution of a Neuroscientist
The seventh of eight children of a Catholic, Norwegian-Irish-American family. Christopher A. Walsh was born and raised in Cranford, New Jersey.
He was the first member of his family not to attend Catholic schools, graduating from the Pingry School. He studied chemistry at Bucknell University, where physiological psychology research led him to discover neuroscience.
He completed a combined MD/PhD training program at the University of Chicago. His PhD thesis, with Rainer Guillery, studied the development of connections between the retina and the brain, during which he spent a year as a Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst fellow at the Max-Planck Institute in Frankfurt, Germany with Wolf Singer and Heinz Wässle.
He then moved to Boston for medical internship, neurology residency and chief residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. During and after residency, he was a postdoctoral fellow in the Harvard Medical School Genetics Department with Connie Cepko, where he published the first studies of cell lineage and neuronal migration in the cerebral cortex using retroviral vectors, and then developed the first retroviral libraries with “DNA barcodes” that allow lineages to be traced independent of patterns of migration and intermingling of clones.
Dr. Walsh established his laboratory in 1993. Read more about the evolution of his research in the Science section of this website. >
Current Lab Members
Post-Doctoral Fellows >
R Andersen | A Arraf |W Choi | E Caglayan | K Essuman | D Exposito-Alonso | A Kriz | A Kriz | A Li | M Luckas | D Shao | D Snellings | Z Zhou
Lab Staff >
Y Adla |E Bushinsky | C Cambridge |B Chhouk |M Chin | H Cline | R Hill | I Lamba | M Manam | J Neil | C Prasad
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Rebecca Andersen, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Becky received her PhD in Developmental and Stem Cell Biology from UCSF in 2019. Her primary focus is on understanding how lncRNAs regulate human brain development and how their disruption can contribute to neuro-developmental disorders.
Alaa Arraf, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Alaa completed his MD/PhD at the Technion – Israel Institute of Techology and completed his residency training in OBGYN at Fambam Health Care Campus. During his postdoctoral fellowship with the Walsh Lab, his research focuses on the Neurogenetic regulation of brain cortex morphogenesis. His research aims are to uncover how genetic and cellular programs coordinate early cortical morphogenesis, providing mechanistic insight into the origins of congenital brain malformations.
William Choi, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
William received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. TX, and completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Tulane University in New Orleans, LA. He is a clinical fellow in the Harvard Genetics Training Program. He joined the Walsh lab in 2023 as a postdoctoral fellow interested in somatic mutations that arise in human neural development.
Emre Caglayan, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Emre received his PhD in Neuroscience from UTSW in 2023. His main focus in the Walsh lab is to discover brain somatic mutation patterns across human and non-human primate species to study their role in human brain evolution and disease.
Kow Essuman, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Kow received his M.D. and Ph.D degrees from Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine, and is currently a Neurosurgery Resident physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. As post-doctoral fellow in the Walsh lab, Kow is interested in better understanding somatic mutations in the normal human brain and in Neurofibromatosis, and how these mutations drive brain tumor growth
David Exposito-Alonso, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
David received his PhD in Neuroscience from King’s College London and joined the lab in 2021. His PhD work focused on molecular mechanisms regulating synaptic connectivity in the cerebral cortex. In the Walsh Lab, David is interested in investigating the functional impact of mutations associated with neurodevelopmental disorders in the assembly of cortical circuits.
Email >
Andrea Kriz, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Andrea received her PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard and joined the lab in 2021. She aims to investigate sex differences in autism at the epigenetic level.
Alice Li, MD/PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Alice received her MD and PhD from Yale University School of Medicine, and recently completed her residency and fellowship in Pathology and Neuropathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. She is interested in applying single cell biological techniques to better understand the role of glial cells in human brain health and disease.
Marshall Lukacs, MD, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Marshall received their MD and PhD from University of Cincinnati/Cincinnati Children’s Hospital and is currently a fellow Neuropathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. They are interested in neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration with a focus on posttranslational modifications including ubiquitination.
Daniel Snellings, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dan received his PhD in Molecular Genetics from Duke University in 2022. He is interested in studying somatic variation in repetitive regions of the genome and developing methods for high-resolution reconstruction of cellular phylogenies from human tissue.
Zinan Zhou, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Zinan’s research interest is to investigate relationships between somatic mutations in human brains and neurodegenerative diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis/frontotemporal dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. He’s also interested in studying somatic mutations in heart aging and related disease conditions.
Graduate Students
Irene Antony
MD/PhD Candidate
Irene is an MD-PhD candidate in the Harvard/MIT MD-PhD Program, with her MD through the HST track and PhD through the Program in Neuroscience (PiN). She joined the lab in 2023. For her PhD research, she is interested in studying early neurodevelopment and how genetic and epigenetic perturbations interact to cause intellectual disability and related neurological disorders.
Juliana Babu
PhD Candidate
Juliana is a PhD student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) program at Harvard and joined the lab in 2024. She is interested in understanding and modeling the effects of genetic mutations on human brain development, and how genetic and epigenetic changes contribute to neurodevelopmental disorders.
Liz Enyenihi
PhD Candidate
Liz is an MD-PhD student (HST) who joined the lab in 2023. Her undergrad research focused on functional characterization of rare germline variants, and she is now interested in studying genetic changes that occur during development and through the lifespan.
Ben Finander
PhD Candidate
Ben Finander is a PhD student in the Biological and Biomedical Sciences (BBS) Program at Harvard. Ben joined the lab in 2022 to study how both germline and somatic mutations can impact neurodevelopment using a combination of wet lab and dry lab techniques.
Lucy Zhao
PhD Candidate
Lab Staff
Yahia Adla
Research Assistant
Yahia earned his B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology with a minor in Chemistry from Stetson University in 2023. He joined the lab in January 2025 and is interested in applying single-cell technologies to investigate somatic mutations and copy number variations that emerge during brain development and in disease contexts.
Evan Bushinsky
Research Assistant
Evan graduated from the University of Rochester with a B.S. in Environmental Health in the spring of 2022. He joined the lab in late March 2023.
Christie Cambridge
Research Assistant
Christie graduated from Howard University in 2024 with an honors BS in Biology and a minor in Chemistry. She joined the Walsh lab in July 2024. She is interested in studying genetic disorders impacting neurodevelopment.
Monique Chin
Administrative Coordinator
Monique joined the lab in 2020. She works as the administrative support for the Principle Investigator and Boston Children’s Hospital Chief of Genetics and Genomics, Dr. Christopher Walsh.
Email >
Hayley Cline
Research Assistant
Hayley graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 2024 with a BA in biochemistry and a minor in statistics. She joined the lab shortly after in July 2024.
Robert Sean Hill, PhD
Lab Director
Sean joined the lab in 2001. He obtained his PhD in molecular genetics and evolution under the guidance of Ann Bucklin at the University of New Hampshire. In the Walsh Lab, he oversees human genetic sequencing and mapping projects, and bioinformatic efforts.
Ishaan Lamba
Research Assistant
Ishaan graduated from Northeastern University in 2024 with a B.S. in Behavioral Neuroscience. He joined the lab in August 2024 and is interested in researching the role of brain evolution in somatic mutagenesis.
Monica Devi Manam
Senior Bioinformatician
Monica is a Senior Bioinformatician, who joined the lab in June 2023. Prior to this, She worked on Tumor-Normal matched testing for Oncopanel at Dana Farber & Mass General Brigham’s – CAMD. At the Walsh Lab, She is interested in understanding somatic mutations and their effects in Neurogenetics
Jennifer E. Neil, MS, CGC
Research Coordinator, Genetic Counselor
Jen manages human research studies, including international collaborations, and genomic sequencing and variant interpretation for gene discovery projects. Prior to joining the lab in 2007, she was a clinical genetic counselor in Toronto, Canada and Stony Brook, NY.
Catherine Prasad
Research Assistant
Catherine joined the lab in August 2023 after graduating from UMass Amherst with a B.S in psychology and neuroscience. Her research interests lie in understanding the mechanisms that characterize gene mutations in neurodevelopmental disorders.
Lab Alumni
Post-Doctoral Fellows
Janet Song, PhD (2020-2025) > Assistant Professor, Harvard University
Xuyu Qian, PhD (2019-2025) > Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, BRIDGE, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia
Alisa Mo, MD, PhD (2022-2025) > Assistant Professor, Pediatrics, Nationwide Children’s Hospital
Yue Huang, PhD (2017-2023) > Scientist, Boston Children’s Hospital, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
Sattar Khoshkhoo, MD, PhD (2017-2023) > Instructor in Neurology, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Michael Miller, MD, PhD (2017-2022) > Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
Westley Philips, MD (2018-2022) > Assistant Professor of Neurosurgery, Stanford University
Richard Smith, MD, PhD (2015-2022) > Assistant Professor in Pharmacology, Pediatrics, Northwestern University
Javier Ganz, PhD (2016-2022) > Director, Precision Genetics Neuroscience, Merck
Sara Bizzotto, PhD (2016-2021) > PLAS Head, Institut Imagine, Paris, France
Marc Beaudin, MD (2020-2021) > Resident in Pediatrics, Boston Children’s Hospital
Caroline Dias, MD, PhD (2016-2021) > Assistant Professor, Children’s Hospital Colorado
Almundher Al-Maawali, MD (2013-2015) > Geneticist, Sultan Qaboos University
Manal Alaamery, PhD (2010-2013) > Chairman and Department Head, King Abdullah International Medical Research Center
Kristina Allen, PhD (1993-1998) > Director, Vaccines Business Unit, Takeda Pharmaceuticals
Byoung-II Bae, PhD (2006-2015) > Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator, UConn Health
Andrew Baltus, PhD (2006-2011) > Chief Operating Officer, Addgene
Maria Chahrour, MS, PhD (2009-2014) > Associate Professor and Principal Investigator, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Bernard Chang, MD (2002-2004) > Professor of Neurology and Dean of Medical Education, Harvard Medical School
Allen Chen, MD, PhD (2014-2018) > Fellow in Rheumatology, New York Hospital
Xi Chen, MD, PhD (2008-2010) > Associate Professor of Opthamology, Duke University
Anjen Chenn, MD, PhD (1999-2002) > Scientific Director, Lab Corp
Joseph C. Corbo, MD, PhD (1999-2002) > Professor of Pathology, Washington University, St. Louis, MO
Dwight Cordero, MD (2006-2010) > Associate Physician
Ryan Doan, PhD (2013-2019) > Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Boston Children’s Hospital
Noelle Dwyer, PhD (2002-2007) > Associate Professor and Principal Investigator, University of Virginia
Yaman Eksioglu, MD, PhD (1994-1997) > Associate Professor, Emory University School of Medicine
Yuanyi Feng, PhD (1997-2006) > Associate Professor, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences
Russell Ferland, PhD (2000-2005) > Professor and Chair of Biomedical Sciences, University of New England
Ying Geng, MD (2013-2014) > Assistant Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine
Ed Gilmore, MD, PhD (2006-2011) > Assistant Professor of Neurology, Case Western Reserve University
Joseph G. Gleeson, MD (1995-1999) > Professor and Principal Investigator, UC San Diego School of Medicine
Anthony Hill, PhD (2001-2010) > Research Fellow, DKFZ German Cancer Research Center
Saumya Jamuar, MBBS, MRCPCH (2012-2014) > Head, SingHealth Duke-NUS Genomic Medicine Center; CSO, Global Gene Corp
Matthew B. Johnson, PhD (2010-2017) > Lab Director, Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, Broad Institute
Seonhee Kim, PhD (2000-2007) > Associate Professor, Temple University, Lewis Katz School of Medicine
Jeehun Lee, MD, PhD (2013-2014) > Professor, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine
Maria Lehtinen, PhD (2007-2011) > Associate Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Boston Children’s Hospital
Pengpeng Li, PhD (2016-2019) > Associate, 5AM Venutures
Judy Liu, MD, PhD (2003-2010) > Associate Professor and Principal Investigator, Brown University
Sofia B. Lizarraga, PhD (2003-2010) > Associate Professor and Principal Investigator, Brown University, Providence, RI
Michael Lodato, PhD (2012-2019) > Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Chiara Manzini, PhD (2006-2013) > Associate Professor, Child Health Institute of New Jersey, Rutgers-RBHS
Christine Marshall, PhD (2005-2008) > Assistant Head of School, St. George’s School, Rhode Island
Ganeshwaran H. Mochida, MD (1999-2008) > Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Boston Children’s Hospital
Edwin S. Monuki, MD, PhD (1998-2001) > Warren L. Bostick Professor and Chair, Pathology, UC Irving School of Medicine
Eric Morrow, MD, PhD (2004-2009) > Mencoff Family Professor of Biology, Brown University
Marta Nieto Lopez, PhD (2000-2004) > Investigador Sientifio, CSIC, Madrid, Spain
Eric Olson, PhD (1997-2003) > Associate Professor and Vice Chair, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, NY
Xianhua Piao, MD, PhD (2000-2005) > Professor of Neonatology, UC San Francisco
Annapurna Poduri, MD, MPH (2004-2012) > Professor of Neurology, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Boston Children’s Hospital
Mohamed A. Sabry, PhD (1998-2000) > Associate Professor
Christian R. Schubert, PhD (2009-2011) > Entrepreneur In Residence, Atlas Venture
Sema Sgaier, PhD (2006-2007) > Co-Founder & CEO, Surgo Ventures; Adjunct Assistant Professor, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Volney Sheen, MD, PhD (2000-2005) > Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Tao Sun, PhD (2002-2005) > Associate Professor, Cornell University Weill Medical College
Ian Tietjen, PhD (2003-2006) > Research Assistant Professor, The Wistar Institute
Jessica Tsai, MD, PhD > Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA
Mollie Woodworth, PhD (2013-2016) > Assistant Professor, Bates College
Seung-Yun Yoo, PhD (2003-2007) > Global Sales Strategy Team Leader, Samsung Biologics
Tim W. Yu, MD, PhD (2007-2013) > Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School; Principal Investigator, Boston Children’s Hospital
Xiaochang Zhang, PhD (2011-2017) > Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator, The University of Chicago
Norma Hylton, PhD (2021-2025) > Medical Student, Harvard Medical School
Maya Talukdar, PhD (2022-2025) > Medical Student, Harvard Medical School
Ellen DeGennaro, PhD (2017-2024) > Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO
Chanthia Ma, PhD (2021-2024) > Medical Student, Harvard Medical School
Shyam Akula, MD, PhD (2019-2022) > Resident in Neurology, UCSF
Edward Stronge, PhD (2017-2024) > Medical Student, Harvard Medical School
Eduardo Maury, PhD (2017-2022) > Resident in Neurology, Mass General Brigham
Taehwan Shin, PhD (2017-2022) > Staff Scientist, Novartis
Rebeca Borges Monroy, PhD (2017-2021) > Scientist, Vertex Pharmaceuticals
Kelly Girskis, PhD (2015-2019) > Research Analyst, Tekla Capital Management
Sonia Kim, PhD (2014-2022) > Postdoctoral Fellow, Stanford University
Rachel Rodin, MD, PhD > Resident in Neurology, Mass General Brigham, Harvard Medical School
Peter Wang, PhD (2010-2016) > Consultant, Clearview Health Consultants
Divya Jayaraman, MD, PhD (2010-2015) > Assistant Professor of Neurology, Columbia University Medical School
Wen Fan Hu, MD, PhD (2010-2014) > Ophthalmologist, University of Utah
Xuyu Cai, PhD (2010-2013) > Scientist, Illumina, Inc.
Michael Coulter, MD, PhD (2009-2018) > Postdoctoral Fellow, UC San Francisco
Gilad Evrony, MD, PhD (2009-2013) > Assistant Professor and Principal Investigator, NYU Langone Health
Jenny (Yawei) Yang, MD, PhD (2007-2013) > Assistant Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College
Vijay Ganesh, MD, PhD (2007-2012) > Instructor in Neurology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital
Mauro Zappaterra, MD, PhD (2005-2010) > Director of Multidisciplinary Care, Synovation Medical Group
Jason B. Neal, MD, PhD (2003-2010) > Postdoctoral Residency Fellow
Sophie Currier, MD, PhD (2000-2004) > Psychiatrist, Aylesbury Oxford Trust at NHS
Thomas A. Deuel, MD, PhD (2000-2004) > Neurologist, Swedish Medical Center; Acting Assistant Professor, University of Washington
Jun Shen, PhD (1999-2004) > Assistant Professor of Pathology, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School
Teresa H. Chae, MD, PhD (1998-2002) > Ophthalmologist, Kelsey-Seybold Clinic
Jeremy Fox, PhD (1995-1999) > Managing Director
Marcus Ware, MD, PhD (1995-1998) > Assistant Professor
Jorge Gonzalez, PhD (1994-1999) > Executive Vice President, EF America
Christopher B. Reid, MD, PhD (1993-1997)
If you are a Walsh Lab alumnus and would like to be included on this page, please contact us!
Kutay Deniz Atabay > PhD Candidate at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Brenda Barry, MS, CGC > Research Coordinator/Genetic Counselor, Boston Children’s Hospital
Adria Bodell, MS > Science Teacher
Paula Delerme, MS, CGC > Clinical Genetic Counselor, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Kira A. Dies, ScM, CGC > Program Manager
Chloe Egan
Princess Christina Elhosary > Student, Case Western Reserve University, School of Dental Medicine
Jillian Felie > Registered Nurse, Boston Children’s Hospital
Nicole Hatem > Nursing Student, Thomas Jefferson University
Haley Hill Gardiner > Genetic Counselor
Benjamin Hills > MD, PhD Candidate at Dartmouth College
Amer Hossain > PhD Candidate at The Rockefeller University
Laura Isacco, Research Technician
Stacy Kamumbu > Medical Student at Case Western Reserve University
Connor Kenny > PhD Candidate
Christina Kourkoulis > Lab Manager, Massachusetts General Hospital
Mark LaCoursiere > Research Technician , Boston Children’s Hospital
Anh-Thu Lam > PhD Candidate, Johns Hopkins University
Bhaven Mehta, MA > PhD Candidate, Dartmouth College
Katherine Morillo >PhD Candidate, Princeton
Lariza Rento, Research Technician
Raheel Rizwan, MD, Clinical Research Specialist
Jacqueline Rodriguez, Research Technician
Aldo Rozzo, DVM, PhD, Lab Manager
Steven Ryu > PhD Candidate
Klaus Schmitz-Abe, PhD, Staff Scientist
Gabrielle Sejourne > PhD Candidate
Sarah Servattalab > Medical Student, University of Massachusetts Medical School
Caroleen S. Smiley > Sr. Administrative Associate
Christine Sunu > Medical Student, Yale School of Medicine
Allison Sussman, MPH > Registered Nurse
Dovie Watson, MD > Physician, Internal Medicine
Suet Yip, Administrative Associate
Lariza Rento, Research Assistant
Samantha Kirkham, Research Assistant
Katherine O’Kane, Research Assistant
Samantha Beck, Research Assistant
Yasmine Chahine, Research Assistant
Jack Marciano, Research Assistant
Brian Chhouk, Research Assistant
Muna Al Saffar, Genetic Counselor
Dilenny Gonzalez, Lab Manager
Shelbi Gill, Research Assistant
Rebecca Yeh, Genetics Counselor/Research Assistant
Urmi Ghosh, Research Assistant
Abbe Lai, Genetics Counselor
Ila Rosen, Research Assistant
Eitan Goodman, Research Assistant
If you are a Walsh Lab alumnus and would like to be included on this page, please contact us!