Dr. Ramesh Shivdasani earned his medical and graduate degrees from the University of Michigan, followed by clinical training in internal medicine and oncology at Harvard Medical School hospitals. His postdoctoral research with Stuart Orkin centered on transcription factors that control blood cell identities. Drawing on concepts and methods in this topic, his laboratory has studied tissue and cell fates in developing and adult epithelia of the digestive tract. Sustained by bona fide stem cells, these epithelia self-renew continuously throughout life and provide ideal experimental models to examine cell state transitions. The laboratory investigates the transcriptional and epigenetic regulation and reversibility of stem and daughter cell states. Dr. Shivdasani’s laboratory provides sound training in the above areas, and many alumni have launched successful research careers in academia and private industry. Current projects examine how signaling and transcriptional pathways intersect to generate and maintain stem and lineage-specified progenitor cells and how cancers subvert normal epigenetic and transcriptional controls. To understand how tissue signaling might induce and maintain tissuespecific chromatin states, the laboratory recently has turned its attention toward characterizing intestinal sub-epithelial mesenchyme, the presumptive niche for intestinal stem and progenitor cells. Until 2017, Dr. Shivdasani maintained a part-time practice in gastrointestinal oncology, and in 2019 he assumed the role of deputy director at Harvard’s NCI-designated consortium comprehensive cancer center. In this capacity he helps steward campuswide collaborations, training, and cancer research.