I earned my PhD from the Neurosciences Program at Stanford University, where I worked in Kang Shen's lab to elucidate the mechanisms underlying synapse development. During my postdoc, I pivoted to the field of molecular evolution by joining the laboratory of Harmit Malik at The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In my own lab, I switched fields yet again to focus on mitochondrial research. While the role of mitochondria in ATP production is widely recognized, their maternally inherited, multicopy genome—which encodes crucial genes—is less well-appreciated. My lab is dedicated to answering fundamental questions about the biology of the mitochondrial genome. Our research encompasses topics of mitochondrial DNA copy number control, the processes that regulate the transmission of mitochondrial DNA via the female germline, and the variable rates at which mutant mitochondrial genome accumulates across different cell types.