I am a graduate of the University of Edinburgh (BSc Hons) and obtained my PhD from the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research at the University of Glasgow. Following postdoctoral fellowships at the Pasteur Institute (with Dominique Stehelin) and at the MIT Center for Cancer Research (with Tyler Jacks), I set up my own independent research laboratory at the University of Chicago. Building on my postdoctoral research at MIT, I initially focused on the role of the RB tumor suppressor gene in stress responses and cellular homeostasis and how these mechanisms are derailed in cancer. My lab’s findings in these studies, showing regulation of mitophagy adaptors by RB/E2F, have led us into exciting new avenues of research. We have recently been examining the role of autophagy and mitochondrial dysfunction in cancer and have identified a critical role for autophagy in focal adhesion disassembly during tumor cell migration and metastasis. The current research goals of my lab are to understand how mitophagy defects and mitochondrial dysfunction modulate tumor progression to metastasis, with an emphasis on breast cancer and liver cancer. We also study mitochondrial homeostasis in normal liver metabolism. I am chair of the graduate program in Cancer Biology at the University of Chicago, director of the NCI-funded T32 “Multi-disciplinary Training grant in Cancer Research” (MTCR) and a program leader in the NCI-designated University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center (UCCCC). At a national level, I serve on various review panels and am president of CABTRAC (Cancer Biology Training Consortium) for 2019.