Zeba Wunderlich

Zeba Wunderlich is an Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at Boston University, with an affiliated faculty position in the Department of Biomedical Engineering. She holds a PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University and a BA in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry and Statistics from Rutgers University. Her research focuses on understanding gene regulatory networks (GRNs) in Drosophila, particularly their architecture, robustness, and evolution in developmental and immune contexts.

Dr. Wunderlich’s work combines experimental approaches like imaging and genomic measurements with computational models to study GRNs in Drosophila embryonic patterning and innate immunity. She investigates how regulatory DNA variation impacts transcriptional regulation, leveraging both natural sequence diversity and experimental perturbations.

• Awards: PECASE (2025), Teaching Excellence (2021), Dean’s Honoree (2020), Chancellor’s Research Award (2019), Hellman Fellowship (2017), and NIH K99/R00 (2012).
• Advising: Mentors PhD, Master’s, and undergraduate students in Biology, BME, and related programs. Alumni hold positions at top institutions such as Emory, UCSF, and Harvard.
• Labs/Teams: Leads the Wunderlich Lab, integrating experimental and computational methods to study GRNs.