Carolyn was a PhD student with Abby Dernburg at UC Berkeley and a post-doctoral fellow with Gary Ruvkun at Harvard Medical School and Mass. General Hospital. She started her position at USC in January 2015, where the Phillips lab studies the role of small RNAs in the regulation of gene expression. Specifically, the Phillips lab is interested in how small RNA pathways are organized spatially, how they are regulated, and how they derive their specificity - all key factors in ensuring that essential genes are expressed and detrimental genes are silenced. Ultimately, these pathways are essential to promote organismal viability and fertility.