Dr. Downing received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Northwestern University, his Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and completed his postdoctoral training at Harvard University in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His research has been recognized by the Ford Foundation Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships, UNCF/Merck Postdoctoral Fellowship, and the Dean’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. In addition, he was recently named to the 2017 class of 30 Under 30 in Science by Forbes Magazine for his research aimed at understanding how extracellular signals can influence cell fate and spinal cord repair.