I am a Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and an Affiliate Member of the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre. I did my PhD with Tony Zador at CSHL and my postdoc with Tom Mrsic-Flogel at the Biozentrum at the University of Basel and at the Sainsbury Wellcome Centre at UCL.

My research programme is focused on the molecular mechanisms that contribute to the functional and anatomical diversity of cortical neurons. The neocortex is not tabula rasa but a product of tens of millions of years of evolution that have shaped cortical circuits to perform computations essential for survival. These evolutionary adaptations can be thought of as inductive biases that help animals take advantage of the accumulated knowledge of their ancestors, passed down to them in form of genetic instructions for wiring networks of neurons. Our mission is to decypher these instructions by investigating how gene expression programmes of cortical neurons constrain their synaptic wiring and understanding the role of the resulting circuits in behavior.