Dr. Starz-Gaiano was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and earned her Bachelor’s degree in Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After working for two years at the MIT Center for Cancer Research with Dr. Jacqueline Lees, she joined the PhD program at New York University. There, she trained with Dr. Ruth Lehmann, studying lipid modifying enzymes that act as repellents to guide migrating cells during embryo development. After earning her doctorate in Developmental Genetics, she worked as an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine with Dr. Denise Montell. With a continued interest in development, she identified and characterized several genes required for a cohort of cells to undergo coordinated movements. Dr. Starz-Gaiano joined the faculty of UMBC in the Department of Biological Sciences in 2008.