Carol Thompson

About Carol Thompson

I have provided scientific leadership and management at the Allen Institute for Brain Science for nearly 20 years. In the early days, as a follow-on to the Allen Mouse Brain Atlas, I oversaw from concept to execution, the Allen Developing Mouse Brain Atlas, a resource characterizing gene expression from the embryonic brain to the adult, and the Sleep Study, a resource that explores the many dynamic changes in gene expression induced by sleep deprivation. Beyond that, I have overseen the build of multiple integrated pipelines for high throughput generation of biological datasets, including hardware and software integration for neurophysiology, including calcium imaging and Neuropixels silicon probes, as well as for transcriptomics profiling and stem cell engineering, culminating in freely available community resources for neuroscience. As the Program and Project Manager, I have supported the creation of the Allen Brain Observatory, a data resource for cellular physiological responses to visual input, and its sister project, OpenScope, which generates datasets based on proposals from the community. I am interested in the power of projects that lie at the intersection of big data, biology and computation, and lead the Data Integration team at the Allen Institute for Brain Science. I am currently coordinating community-generated data for the Brain Cell Data Center as part of the BRAIN Initiative Cell Census Network (BICCN) and am engaged in standardization efforts. I received my BS in Biology from the University of Richmond and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I studied cryptochrome photoreceptors under the guidance of Nobel laureate Aziz Sancar, MD, PhD.

Experience

1. Associate Director, Informatics and Data Science

   Allen Institute

   Jan 2022 — Present · Seattle, WA, US

Education

• University of Richmond

  B.S., Biology

  1993 — 1997

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Biochemistry

  1997 — 2003

Skills

• Neuroscience
• Brain Research
• Data Analysis
• Science
• Biochemistry
• Public Speaking
• Cell Biology
• Regenerative Medicine
• Molecular Biology
• High Throughput Screening
• Genomics
• Gene Expression Profiling
• Lifesciences
• Biotechnology
• Genetics
• Project Management
• Developmental Biology
• Bioinformatics
• Sleep Deprivation
• Circadian Rhythms