Stirling Churchman is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Her research focuses on the coordination of gene expression across the cell, from the nucleus to the mitochondria, in both health and disease. The Churchman lab has developed innovative sequencing-based approaches to visualize gene expression processes across the cell with high resolution.

Among her contributions, Churchman pioneered native elongating transcript sequencing (NET-seq), which maps RNA polymerase genome-wide at nucleotide resolution. The Churchman lab also developed nanopore analysis of co-transcriptional processing (nano-COP), a technique designed to directly probe the dynamics and regulation of pre-mRNA splicing in vivo. More recently, the lab established subcellular TimeLapse-seq, a method that tracks the life cycles of RNAs, from production to degradation, as they progress through the cell.

In addition, the Churchman group discovered that cytosolic and mitochondrial translation programs are synchronized during mitochondrial biogenesis. By continually developing novel approaches to analyze gene expression processes, Dr. Churchman and her team aim to identify previously unappreciated layers of gene regulation and elucidate the molecular mechanisms behind them, ultimately contributing to a deeper understanding of cellular function in health and disease.

Churchman has a B.A in physics from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford University. She joined the faculty of the Genetics Department at Harvard Medical School in 2011. Her awards include the Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, and the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.