Meghan Morrissey

Biography

Dr. Morrissey attended the University of Notre Dame, earning a BS in Biological Sciences. She then completed her PhD at Duke University, studying how extracellular matrix informs cell behavior during development and cancer metastasis. Dr. Morrissey went on to do postdoctoral research in Ron Vale's lab at UCSF. At UCSF, she developed a research program studying macrophage cell biology. Dr. Morrissey joined the faculty at UCSB in the fall of 2020.

Research

Macrophages patrol our tissues looking for signs of injury or infection. The Morrissey Lab wants to understand how macrophages measure, add and subtract all the signals they receive to calculate their response to a target. We use high resolution live imaging, synthetic biology and biochemistry to figure out when and where signaling molecules are activated to make these essential decisions. We are motivated by re-wiring macrophage signaling pathways to generate new cancer immunotherapies.

Mentoring Priorities 

"I believe that clear and consistent communication is the most effective way to create an inclusive lab environment and advance a scientific project. Scientifically, my top priority is asking interesting and answerable questions. This gets easier with practice - the more questions you ask, the better they get! To prioritize professional development, I meet with students one-on-one each quarter to discuss long term goals. Students define their own development goals, and we discuss concrete, actionable steps towards achieving their personal definition of success."