Our Faculty

The research interests of the genetics faculty span a wide variety of important and cutting-edge areas of genetics and genomics and include cancer, cellular, computational, developmental, evolutionary, expression regulation, molecular, neuropsychiatric, population, reproductive, statistical, epigenetics, and neurogenetics. Research is being conducted in humans, mice, zebrafish, fruit flies, nematodes, yeast, and bacteria. We also have faculty working in computational and statistical genetics and bioinformatics. For a complete faculty listing and detailed research descriptions, see our faculty list

Members of the faculty have received competitive research grants from several institutes within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), as well as the State of New Jersey and numerous private foundations such as the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, the Simons Foundation, Autism Speaks, the March of Dimes, and many others.

Media Title
Position Email Research Focus
David Axelrod Professor Cell and Molecular Oncology. Breast Cancer. Colon Cancer
Marco Azaro Assistant Research Professor
Maureen Barr Distinguished Professor Modeling human genetic diseases in C. elegans
Christina Bergey Assistant Professor Evolutionary genomics of humans, non-human primates, and disease vectors
Linda Brzustowicz Distinguished Professor Medical and human genetics: the genetics of neuropsychiatric disorders
Chris Ellison Associate Professor Evolutionary genomics and genome organization in Drosophila
Oleg Evgrafov
Derek Gordon Associate Professor Statistical genetics
Gary A. Heiman Professor- Vice- Chair & Undergraduate Director Genetic epidemiology of neuropsychiatric disorders
Devanshi Jain Assistant Professor Gametogenesis and Genome Integrity
James A. Knowles, M.D., Ph.D.
Tara Matise Distinguished Professor-Chair, Department of Genetics Computational Human Genetics, genetics coordinating center
Kim McKim Professor Molecular Genetics of Meiotic Recombination in Drosophila Melanogaster
Tetsuya Nakamura Assistant Professor Revealing the genetic mechanisms of the fish diversity and their contribution to the fish-to-tetrapod transition
Bryce Nickels Professor Regulation of gene expression in bacteria
Jessica Rispoli Associate Teaching Professor, Director of the Genetic Counseling Master's Program Genetic Counseling
Christopher Rongo Professor Molecular genetics of synapse formation and plasticity in C. elegans
Amrik Sahota Research Professor Human Molecular Genetics; Molecular Diagnostics
Karen Schindler Professor Understanding the molecular mechanisms that lead to aneuploidy in female gametes
Christine Seymour Assistant Program Director Genetic Counseling Master's Program
Premal Shah Assistant Professor Evolution of coding sequences and regulation of protein synthesis
Gleb Shumyatsky Professor Molecular and cellular mechanisms of memory as well as social and maternal behavior
Andrew Singson Professor Reproductive biology and cell-cell interactions in C. elegans
Jay Tischfield Distinguished Professor, Department of Genetics Executive Director, HGINJ Medical and human genetics: the genetics of somatic cells, mouse models for human diseases and genes for complex human genetic disorders
Michael Verzi Professor Transcriptional Regulatory Mechanisms in Intestinal Disease
Juan Wang Assistant Research Professor
Jinchuan Xing Professor Mobile Elements, Human Genomic Variation, Evolutionary Genetics, Population Genetics
Samhita Yadavalli Assistant Professor Bacterial signaling pathways and regulation of gene expression.
Jiekun Yang Assistant Professor
Lei Yu Distinguished Professor Genetics of compulsive behaviors (such as alcoholism and drug addiction) and neuro-sensory disorders (such as neuropathic pain)
Michael E. Zwick Senior Vice President for Research and Professor