We are pleased to announce that Golnaz Vahedi, PhD, has been appointed co-Director of the Penn Epigenetics Institute. Golnaz will fill the role vacated by Marisa Bartolomei, PhD, upon her appointment as Director of the Center for Women’s Health and Reproductive Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
Marisa has long been a leader at Penn in many capacities, including as the co-Director of the Epigenetics Institute, and we are thrilled that she will assume this leadership to build the Center into a great entity. On the other hand—this news is bittersweet for us, as it means she has left her role as co-Director. We are so grateful to Marisa for all that she’s done for the Epigenetics Institute. Her leadership has been critical in our growth and success over 15 years, and we are very happy she has promised to remain highly involved as a Core Member.
Transitions also provide opportunity to bring new leadership, and we are thrilled that Golnaz has agreed to take on this position. Golnaz is deeply talented, with dazzling computational ability along with exceptional experimental science. She is well-known internationally for her innovative research to acutely investigate gene and chromatin regulation of T-cell development. Golnaz has been a constant and passionate contributor to Institute initiatives and events, and in many ways this is a natural step. In addition, Golnaz is a delightful colleague and wonderfully fun person, very much in the spirit of Penn. We welcome her excitement to join us to continue the positive trajectory of the Institute, and to bring fresh ideas and new perspective. We encourage you to learn more about Golnaz by reading her short bio below.
We hope you all will join us in welcoming Golnaz to her new role, as well as in thanking Marisa for her many years of service.
With sincere appreciation,
Shelley, Gerd, and Colleen
Shelley Berger, Epigenetics Institute Director
Gerd Blobel, Epigenetics Institute co-Director
Colleen Blair, Epigenetics Institute Associate Director
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About Golnaz Vahedi, PhD
Golnaz Vahedi, a native of Iran, is an Associate Professor of Genetics (with tenure) at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Golnaz studied Electrical Engineering at Sharif University of Technology in Iran. Sharif University is known for its large number of elite alumni who join the academic world. Golnaz received her Ph.D. with Drs. Edward Dougherty and Jean-Francois Chamberland in Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University. She then joined the laboratory of Dr. John O’Shea at the NIH as a postdoctoral fellow to study the epigenomic regulation of T cells. It was in the O’Shea lab that she found studying the epigenome is similar to dissecting electrical circuits. As an independent investigator, she uses systems-based approaches to understand molecular details of gene regulation in the immune system. She is the recipient of a number of awards including the NIH Director’s Award (twice), NIAID K22 Career Transition Award (perfect score), Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Award, W. W. Smith Charitable Trust, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, and Michael S. Brown New Investigator Research Award. She is currently the Deputy Director of Innovation and Technology, Institute for Immunology & Immune Health. She also serves on the advisory boards of the Cell Press journal Immunity and Science Immunology and is a standing member of GCAT study section.