Hellman Fellows for 2022-2023

The Hellman Fellowships Program, which recognizes promising assistant professors showing capacity for great distinction in their research, has honored two Dunlop School faculty for 2022-23. Developmental and Cell Biology Assistant Professor Xiaoyu Shi: Using super-resolution microscopy and chemical synthesis, Professor Shi devises advanced imaging techniques and multiomics methods to examine how cells power development across all scales. She investigates the ways cells organize proteins, RNA and DNA in space and time; the molecular mechanisms underpinning primary cilia’s regulation of Hedgehog signaling; and organization of single-cell multiomic data at the spatial scale. Developmental and Cell Biology Assistant Professor Katherine Thompson-Peer: Professor Thompson-Peer researches the recovery of neurons after injury in vivo. In particular, Professor Thompson-Peer is interested in how dendrites, which are short branched extensions of nerve cells, regenerate following damage to the brain, stroke, and other kinds of neurodegeneration. A primary goal is creating a new framework to better understand the capacity of injured neurons to recover in young and aging animals. The Hellman Fellowships have provided early-career funding to junior faculty at UC campuses and four private institutions since 1994. The School is proud of our honorees and their contributions to important new knowledge that will help shape the future for the better.