Affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, Princeton University

Dr. Kai Mesa is an assistant professor in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University. While pursuing a PhD at Yale University, he helped develop novel intravital imaging techniques to track epithelial stem cell dynamics and single-cell fates in live mice. He later conducted postdoctoral research at NYU, investigating the niche-specific population dynamics of resident macrophages during skin aging and tissue repair. Dr. Mesa’s research group now focuses on elucidating how immune cells adopt context-dependent fates to regulate stem cell activity during tissue regeneration and physiological aging.