I am mainly interested in how regulatory and epigenetic factors can influence the inheritance and expression of heritable traits, especially complex traits. My Ph.D. work primarily used human genetic methods, and I joined The Jackson Laboratory to expand my expertise with mice. My current research involves the role of the histone methyltransferase PRDM9 in allocation and repair of meiotic double-strand breaks, which are necessary for the essential process of genetic recombination. In mammals, PRDM9 is responsible for both initiating and localizing the sites of recombination within the genome. I have several ongoing projects in the lab, all of which involve the DNA-binding properties of PRDM9 in vivo, and the roles of PRDM9-dependent histone modifications in recombination.

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