Rate My Professor Julia Horsfield

Her laboratory studies chromosome packaging by cohesin and CTCF proteins and its regulation of gene expression during embryogenesis and in cancer, employing zebrafish models to explore developmental disorders such as Cornelia de Lange syndrome and the first links between cohesin mutations and human leukaemia. Key publications include the edited volume Chromatin: Methods and Protocols (Springer, 2022), 'Cohesin and CTCF emerge as building blocks of 3D genome structure' (2024), 'Full circle: a brief history of cohesin and the regulation of gene expression' (FEBS Journal, 2023), 'Recurrent de novo variants in the spliceosomal factor CRNKL1 are associated with severe microcephaly...' (American Journal of Human Genetics, 2025), and contributions to Development and Genes to Cells (2025). She has received the Fulbright New Zealand Scholar award (2019) for single-cell sequencing at UC Davis and Irvine, Health Research Council Explorer Grant (2015), Health Research Publication Award (2016), and Marsden Fund grants including $941,000 (2024), alongside three Marsden grants and two HRC projects. Horsfield leads Genetics Otago with nearly 270 members, supports nine principal investigators via the zebrafish facility, and delivered her Inaugural Professorial Lecture.