Position: Professor of Biology and Principal Investigator

Education: B.A. Cornell University 1992, Ph.D. Harvard University 1999

Contact: paradis@brandeis.edu

(781)736-5305 (office)

(781)736-3176/3177 (lab)

Faculty Profile

Hometown: Chelmsford, MA

Personal Interests: Having grown up in the Boston area, I am an avid Red Sox and Patriots fan. I have also spent many enjoyable vacations backpacking in the White Mountains, Rockies and the Sierras.

If I weren't a scientist I'd be... head winemaker at a premium winery in the Russian River Valley, Sonoma, CA

Research Interests: I am a molecular neuroscientist interested in understanding how synapses form in the mammalian CNS. I developed an interest in using genetics as a tool for understanding complex biological processes as a graduate student in the laboratory of Gary Ruvkun at Harvard Medical School. My graduate work focused on identifying and cloning signal transduction molecules in an insulin-like signaling pathway that regulates aging in C. elegans. For my postdoctoral training, I chose to focus on nervous system development, specifically to understand synapse development and function. In the laboratory of Graeme Davis at UCSF, I used a combination of genetic and electrophysiological approaches to dissect the homeostatic regulation of synaptic function at the Drosophila NMJ. I then chose to continue my postdoctoral training in a mammalian system in the laboratory of Michael Greenberg at Children's Hospital Boston. In the Greenberg lab, I established RNAi approaches in cultured neurons for isolating new molecules required for inhibitory and excitatory synapse development.