Genevieve Konopka, Ph.D.

Genevieve Konopka is an associate professor of neuroscience and the Jon Heighten Scholar in Autism Research at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Konopka completed her Ph.D. in neurobiology at Harvard University and received dual B.S. degrees in brain and cognitive sciences and in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Research in the Konopka laboratory focuses on understanding the molecular pathways important for human brain evolution that are also at risk in cognitive disorders such as autism spectrum disorder. Her laboratory uses a combination of human neurons, animal models and primate comparative genomics to uncover human-specific, disease-relevant patterns of gene expression. Konopka is particularly interested in the evolution of language, and part of her research has focused on the FOXP family of transcription factors. Recent work in her laboratory has integrated gene expression with signatures of neuronal activity in the human brain.