Professor Narlikar is a faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF since 2003. She obtained her MSc in Chemistry from IIT Bombay in 1992 and PhD from Stanford University in 1998. She carried out postdoctoral research at Harvard Medical School. Professor Narlikar studies how the folding and organization of our genome is regulated to generate the many cell types that make up our body. Her laboratory studies macromolecules that package the genome and nanoscale motors that remodel the packaged genome. The Narlikar laboratory has discovered that (i) the smallest unit of packaged DNA acts akin to a dynamic receptor rather than a static structural unit and, (ii) that liquid-liquid phase separation can physically compartmentalize genes into “on” and “off” states. These discoveries are changing textbook descriptions of genome packaging and suggesting new avenues to tackle diseases caused by defects in genome organization. Professor Narlikar’s work has been recognized by different awards over the years, including the Beckman Young Investigator Award, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, the Outstanding Faculty Mentorship Award by the UCSF Graduate Students Association and the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.