Dr. Carpenter obtained her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Biochemistry and Immunology at Trinity College Dublin in Ireland. She carried out her postdoctoral training at UMASS medical school and UCSF where she began her work studying long noncoding RNAs in immunity. In 2015 she began her independent research group at UCSC. They combine high throughput approaches using CRISPR technology and in vivo models to functionally characterize novel genes and isoforms involved in controlling inflammation.