Principal investigator
Tim Mosca, Ph.D.

B.S., Yale '99-'03
M.S., Yale, '99-'03
Ph.D., Harvard '03-'09
Postdoc, Stanford '10-16

Stanford University Postdoctoral Award ('12)
K99/R00 Pathway to Independence Award ('13-'19)
Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship ('18-'20)

Our fearless leader. He makes sure we have direction, money, baked goods, and mentorship. He gets really excited about science, running, education, and Twitter. But mostly about science.

RESEARCH Associate
MICHAEL PARISI, PH.D.

Dr. Parisi is a senior scientist in the Mosca Lab. He received his B.S. from SUNY Purchase and then his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from New York University. He has done postdoctoral fellowships at Duke University and the NIH working on various aspects of Drosophila biology, genetics, and neuroscience. Before coming to Jefferson, he was a research specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. He brings over 20 years of Drosophila experience to the lab and builds novel technologies for cell-type specific synaptic imaging that help advance our projects on neurodevelopment!

Postdoctoral fellow
Kristen Davis, Ph.D.

Kristen is currently a postdoctoral scholar in the lab. She received her B.S. in Biology and Psychology from Longwood University and earned a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she studied appetite control circuits in C. elegans. She did her first postdoc with Dr. David Raizen at the University of Pennsylvania, studying sleep and injury in C. elegans. She brings considerable neuroscience and genetics experience to the Mosca Lab to study the intricacies of synaptic regulation at the circuit level and the genetics of neurodivergence.

Doctoral Candidate
Jesse Humenik, B.S.

Jesse is a Ph.D. student in the Graduate Program in Neuroscience. He received a B.S. in Biological Sciences from Drexel University and worked as a research technician at the University of Pennsylvania for two years, studying RNA binding proteins. He joined Jefferson in 2019 and has conducted a screen to find novel cell surface proteins that promote central and peripheral synaptic development and organization. He also holds the distinction of being the only member to join during an actual pandemic.

Graduate student
Benjamin Seitz, B.S., M.S.

To be established!

Master’s student
Olivia Reinert, B.S.

To be established!

OUR NEXT MEMBER
IT COULD BE YOU!

Are you interested in joining the lab?

Visit our "JOIN US" page for more information!

We're always looking for talented, driven scientists to join us in the continuing fight to push back the frontiers of knowledge.

Gritty

Let’s face it. We’re mildly obsessed with Gritty. And who wouldn’t be? He(?)/She(?)/It(?)/They(?) are amazing. They are immortal. They came in like a wrecking ball, and they made Philly love them. Then they made the world love them. We consider Gritty an unofficial lab member. Tim’s even got a sequined Gritty pillow in his office that was a Christmas gift from the lab. And it’s not even a little bit creepy.