She is a biophysicist with a keen interest in basic as well as translational aspects of regenerative medicine. She obtained her doctoral degree from UC Berkeley and did postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School and UCI. Her postdoctoral work, on the mechanically-activated ion channel Piezo1 in neural stem cells, brought to light the channel’s physiological role in determining neural stem cell fate. The long-term goal of Pathak’s lab is to understand – at the molecular, cellular and organismal levels – how mechanical forces modulate neural stem cell fate in development and repair. Her lab uses a multi-disciplinary approach, combining ideas and techniques from ion channel biophysics, cell biology, optical imaging, stem cell biology and bioengineering.