I am an evolutionary developmental biologist and my laboratory uses embryological, molecular, genomic and phylogenetic approaches to investigate the evolution of pattern formation in metazoan embryos. A major focus of my laboratory is to investigate the molecular basis for the evolution, specification and patterning of the animal-vegetal (AV) axis.
Our current research is focused on identifying and characterizing the maternally derived egg polarities that selectively activate early Wnt signaling in sea urchins and in Nematostella, and then using that information to begin to reconstruct the mechanisms that led to the evolution of germ layer segregation and gastrulation in metazoans