Sofie Salama, PhD
Acting Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
Faculty Director of Diversity, UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute
Executive Committee, Institute for the Biology of Stem Cells
University of California Santa Cruz

Sofie Salama’s work involves using pluripotent stem cells from a variety of primate species and high throughput sequencing methods to study how genome evolution affects human development and disease. Since 2004, she has collaborated closely with Professor David Haussler, Scientific Director of the UC Santa Cruz Genomics Institute. They co-direct  a Molecular Biology (Wet) Lab that was initially funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and is located in the Institute for the Biology of Stem Cells. She has funding from NIH-NHGRI to explore the mechanisms by which transposable elements lead to new gene regulatory programs important for the evolution of new traits as well as funding from NIH-NIMH to study the role of human-specific genomic innovations on brain development and disease. With Professor Haussler and Computer and Electrical Engineering Professor Mircea Teodorescu, Salama leads UCSC’s Braingeneers project funded by the Schmidt Futures Foundation and NSF. This interdisciplinary team aims to develop stem cell derived 3D cell culture models of the brain to study the development and behavior of human neural circuits at a scale that enables the application of modern artificial intelligence (AI) approaches to this research. She is also Co-PI with Haussler and ECE Professor Holger Schmidt of the Genomics Institute’s Center for Live Cell Genomics, an NIH-NHGRI Center for Excellence in Genomic Science. Salama is also a lead scientist for the UCSC Treehouse Pediatric Cancer Initiative. Salama has mentored many graduate students and postdocs. She has mentored over 30 undergraduates including many participating in programs promoting research opportunities for underrepresented populations such as the Research Mentoring Institute. She is  currently the Faculty Director of Diversity at the Genomics Institute and leads the Institute’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee. Salama received her Ph.D. at UC Berkeley in Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, did postdoctoral research in the Laboratory of Molecular Oncology at the MGH Cancer Center and Harvard Medical School and was a founding scientist and Director of Core Technologies at Microbia Inc. (now Ironwood Pharmaceuticals). Her work has been recognized by the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research.