Speakers

Dr. Heavner received her Ph.D. in Genetics and Molecular Biology from the University of North Carolina, where she worked in the lab of Dr. Larysa Pevny investigating transcriptional regulation of retinal development using mouse genetics as a primary tool. Enamored with gene regulation and neural development, Dr. Heavner then joined the labs of Dr. Susan McConnell and Dr. Gill Bejerano at Stanford University to study cortical development from a genome-wide perspective. 

While at Stanford, Dr. Heavner received one of the inaugural Stanford Neurosciences Institute Interdisciplinary Scholar Awards, which allowed her to explore neuroscience, writing, and teaching more broadly. Increasingly interested in synaptic plasticity, Dr. Heavner then traveled up to Seattle Children's Research Institute to work in the lab of Dr. Stephen E. P. Smith, where she studied the roles of synaptic scaffolding proteins in neural activity and Autism Spectrum Disorders. 

Dr. Heavner has come full circle, back to her neural progenitor roots, to co-lead the Molecular Neurobiology Section in the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke at the National Institutes of Health, where she investigates signaling pathways important for neural regeneration.