Research Interests:

• Specification and patterning of the early vertebrate nervous system; how neurons adopt a neurotransmitter phenotpye (e.g. GABAergic or glutamatergic).
• Molecular mechanisms governing secondary neurogenesis and generation of interneuron diversity.

• Molecular mechanisms underlying the plasticity of the developing nervous system under different environmental conditions and in the face of various perturbations, genetic and otherwise.
  

• The effects of environmental toxins (in particular, mercury) on the development of the nervous system and the cellular-molecular mechanisms underlying these effects.