Irene Kaplow

Irene Kaplow is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University's Mellon College of Science. She holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University and completed a postdoctoral appointment at CMU. Her research focuses on understanding how transcriptional regulatory mechanisms, particularly enhancer activity, drive phenotypic evolution in mammals. She is a key member of the Zoonomia Consortium, sequencing hundreds of mammalian genomes to identify genetic factors underlying traits like brain size and longevity.

Her work combines machine learning with experimental validation to link genetic variation in enhancers to complex phenotypes. Notable contributions include developing frameworks to associate enhancer activity differences with tissue-specific traits and applying these methods to study carnivory, hibernation, and vocal learning. Kaplow’s lab emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches, integrating computational predictions with experimental validation in model organisms.

Publications highlight her expertise in genomic analysis, evolutionary biology, and computational methods, with recent work published in Science on mammalian genome comparisons and vocal learning evolution. She collaborates extensively with evolutionary biologists and computational scientists to advance understanding of phenotypic diversity across species.