Joshua Levin, Ph.D.

Joshua Levin is a senior group leader and research scientist in the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research and the Klarman Cell Observatory at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he is also an institute scientist. In his research, he uses transcriptomic approaches to improve our understanding of brain function as it relates to psychiatric disorders such as autism and schizophrenia. During his time at the Broad Institute, he has developed and comprehensively evaluated an extensive portfolio of RNA sequencing (RNA-Seq) methods such as targeted, strand-specific, total, low-input, 5’, and single cell RNA-Seq protocols. These RNA-Seq methodologies are being used for a variety of projects institute-wide, notably cancer transcriptomics, single cell studies, and genome annotation. Levin is also a member of the Human Cell Atlas (HCA) Standards and Technology Working Group, which aims to provide a framework to propose technologies, quality metrics, guidelines, and new computational tools that will serve as a “compass” for the HCA’s generation of reproducible and high quality tissue atlases.

Before joining the Broad Institute in 2007, Levin worked for ten years in the biotechnology industry, first at Syngenta (formerly Ciba-Geigy and Novartis) and later at Novartis Pharmaceuticals using model organisms in functional genomics studies.

Levin received his B.A. in biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and his Ph.D. in biology from MIT in the laboratory of Robert Horvitz. His postdoctoral studies were at the California Institute of Technology, where he investigated genetic and molecular factors controlling flower development in Arabidopsis.