Affiliation: Harvard Medical School, Department of Genetics

Dr. Meng Zhu obtained her bachelor’s degree in Biological Sciences (Hons) from Tsinghua University in 2014. She then carried out her PhD research at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, where she worked in Prof. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz's lab to study the mechanisms to establish cell polarisation and cell fate in the early mouse embryo. During her PhD and a transitory postdoctoral researcher period in Cambridge, Meng Zhu developed the research interest based on cellular plasticity during tissue morphogenesis and cell fate differentiation, and the regulation of developmental timing. After leaving Cambridge, she continued her research in developmental biology as a Human Frontier Science Program–funded postdoctoral fellow in Prof. Cliff Tabin’s lab, in the Genetics Department at Harvard University. Her current research focuses on the causes and consequences of developmental heterochrony of limb development during evolution.