Mustafa Aydogan

Assistant Professor of Genetics and Development, Columbia University

Sandler Fellow, University of California San Francisco (2020-2024)
PhD, University of Oxford (2015-2019)

Mustafa received his BA from the University of Colorado at Boulder. During his alma mater, he had the opportunity to work along with experts of cytoplasmic organization, such as J. Richard McIntosh and Andreas Hoenger, as well as with experts of cellular signalling, such as Natalie G. Ahn. During his PhD at Oxford, he developed his general interest in the principles of biological timing, following up on his serendipitous finding that an autonomous clock initiates and times centriole biogenies independently of the cell cycle. Directly after his PhD studies, Mustafa started his group in the summer of 2020 as a Sandler Fellow at University of California San Francisco. Starting in the spring of 2025, he started at Columbia University as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics and Development.

Outside the laboratory, he has developed hobbies in other fields of science, such as mathematics and the sociology of science. He enjoys informal collaborations with colleagues in these disciplines to practice new areas of knowledge, and sometimes arguably productively (e.g., see here and a partial highlight in German).

Select Honours and Awards:

• NIH New Innovator Award (2023-2028)

• New Frontier Research Award, UCSF Program for Breakthrough Research (2022)

• Sandler Faculty Fellow Award (2020-2024)

• BSCB Young Cell Biologist of the Year, Runner-up (2018)

• Cold Spring Harbor Asia Fellow Award (2017)

• Sir E.P. Abraham Scholar (2015-2019)

• Elected Fellow, The Linnean Society of London (2013)