Kevin Moses

I had certain diagnostic phenotypes: eyeglasses, bad at sports, liked math. I took apart my watch and dissected mice (neither worked afterward). During secondary school, I gravitated toward biology through an extreme form of skepticism: I found it hard to believe in anything I couldn't see. I was always asking, “Can you take a picture of it?” This forced me away from physics and a lot of chemistry. In college I became a little more sophisticated so that I was able to enjoy genetics (even though you often can't take a picture of it), and during graduate school, I moved into developmental biology because the new molecular genetic tools in flies were beginning to answer major questions in a satisfyingly definitive way. As a working scientist, I have been most interested in the mechanisms at the cellular level that control patterning: How does the exquisitely precise pattern of the insect compound eye get formed? This can't be explained simply in terms of signal transduction pathway diagrams. We have to think in terms of fields and gradients, sending cells and receiving cells, combinatorial codes, time and space.

After 20 years in fly development in academia, I have begun a major switch in going to Janelia Farm. This was really for two strong positive reasons. The first is that for me this was a rare opportunity to lift my head from the increasingly minute analysis of fly eye development and ask myself the broad questions: What are the most important questions facing science, and what could be done to approach them? These are not the kinds of questions that an academic (or industrial) scientist gets to consider in any material way. The fact that this sort of strategic thinking is the core of the Janelia Farm mission became very exciting to me. The second factor is the liberating new scientific culture planned for Janelia. When Gerry Rubin first explained his ideas to me, I thought he was kidding: scientists will work collaboratively in small groups, people will talk freely and often across areas of expertise and experience. As I considered his proposals, I began to realize that he was absolutely right. This is a better way.

As associate director for science and training, my role is to work with the director, the chief operating officer, and the group leaders to achieve our scientific mission. I am responsible for the postdoctoral and graduate programs, the scientific cores and support, and the acquisition and sharing of major equipment. I am also responsible for the conference program, the internal and external seminar series and the scientific visitors program. I assist the director in recruiting the group leaders and scientific support staff, and in reviewing their progress. I am deeply committed to the success of Janelia Farm and view my mission as removing barriers and helping make things happen scientifically.

Kevin Moses was born and educated in England. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, all in genetics. His Ph.D. work was on gene regulation in Drosophila. He did postdoctoral work in the laboratory of Gerald M. Rubin at the University of California, Berkeley, where he studied eye development in the fly.

Moses has held faculty positions at the University of Southern California and Emory University. The main focus of his research was Drosophila eye development; he has published numerous papers on the genetic mechanisms of retinal patterning. He has organized and chaired several international conferences in his field and has served on the editorial board of the journal Development. Among his awards are the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation Basil O'Connor Award and the American Cancer Society Junior Faculty Research Award.