Naomi Baxter - 2024

Biography

     Naomi received her BS in Chemistry and Biochemistry through CCS at UCSB in 2015. During undergrad, she worked in Dr. Songi Han's biophysics and instrumentation lab studying membrane protein oligomerization and function. She took a few year hiatus from academia to work at Gritstone Bio, a biotech company in the Bay Area, before starting her PhD in 2019 where she joined the Wilson lab in 2020.

Research

     Naomi studies how Erk and Wnt signaling dynamics instruct stem cell fate decisions during early embryonic development. She combines cellular optogenetics and stem cell- based embryo models of gastrulation to deconstruct how intracellular signaling dynamics coordinate cell fate decisions and overall tissue patterning of the gastruloid.