Sihai Dave Zhao (GNDP), an associate professor of statistics, has been appointed the Director of Computational Genomics at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology.

Zhao has been a member of the IGB for over eight years, joining the year he came to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. At the IGB he develops analysis strategies for genomic data, improves statistical applications in biology, and studies spatial transcriptomics and behavioral genomics.

The nervous system is made up of diverse cells that arise from progenitors in a specific time-dependent pattern. In a new study, published in Nature Communications, researchers have uncovered the molecular players involved and how the timing is controlled.