Karissa Sanbonmatsu investigates how DNA allows cells in our body to remember events that take place.

Why you should listen

Dr. Karissa Sanbonmatsu is a principal investigator at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the New Mexico Consortium, funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. 

As a principal investigator, Sanbonmatsu has advanced our understanding of the mechanism of the ribosome, antibiotics and riboswitches. She published some of the first structural studies of epigenetic long non-coding RNAs and is currently studying the mechanism of epigenetic effects involving chromatin architecture. She uses a combination of wetlab biochemistry, supercomputers and cryogenic electron microscopy to investigate mechanism in atomistic detail. She is on the board of Equality New Mexico and the Gender Identity Center and is an advocate for LGBT people in the sciences.

Karissa Sanbonmatsu’s TED talk

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Getting started: Notes from Session 2 of TEDWomen 2018

November 29, 2018

In an early morning session hosted by podcaster and TED2017 speaker Manoush Zomorodi, six speakers — Lucy Cooke, Ayanna Howard, Nivruti Rai, Monique W. Morris, Karissa Sanbonmatsu and Amanda Williams — brought us insights from the worlds of AI, robotics, epigenetics, education, and the wonderfully slow world of the sloth. Sustainability lessons from the sloth. Sloths […]

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