Mary Beth Hatten

Mary E. Hatten is the Frederick P. Rose Professor and head of the Laboratory of Developmental Neurobiology at Rockefeller University. She is also co-director at the Shelby White and Leon Levy Center for Mind, Brain, and Behavior, and Senior Advisor at the Kavli Neural Systems Institute.

Her research, which explores how the brain forms in the early stages of embryonic development, has helped to illuminate its complex architecture at the cellular level.Hatten’s pioneering work on real-time imaging of central nervous system neuronal migration directly showed that neural migration along radial glial fibers underlies development of the cerebral cortex. Her research on how neurons migrate and differentiate has implications for the genetics of brain disease, as well as conditions that are partially due to developmental abnormalities, such as autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), attention deficit disorder, and childhood epilepsy. Her work has also provided insights into medulloblastoma, a prevalent childhood metastatic brain tumor.

In recent work, Hatten and her colleagues described the role of a DNA-packaging protein, chromatin, in forming the cerebellum, the part of the brain that enables learning and the execution of complex movements.

Hatten’s Ph.D. is in biochemical sciences from Princeton University.