Dr. Erin Doherty is a chemical and structural biologist driven to understand how molecular conflicts between viruses and their hosts shape the evolution of immunity. She grew up on the Eastside of Seattle where her education fostered an early interest in the molecular basis of life. She attended California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo where she received a B.S. in Biochemistry and conducted organic synthesis research with Dr. H.H. Palandoken. Erin completed her Ph.D. in Chemistry at the University of California, Davis where she was a T32 Chemical Biology trainee and NIH NCI F32 NRSA fellow in the lab of Dr. Peter Beal. Her doctoral training employed biochemical approaches to interrogate the enzymology of human RNA editing enzymes. As an NIH NIGMS F32 fellow in the lab of Dr. Jennifer Doudna at the University of California, Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI), she used her expertise in nucleic acid chemical biology to uncover new roles for oligonucleotides in immunity. During her postdoc, she founded the IGI-HBCU Rising Stars Program and is deeply committed to improving access to STEM. Erin is a 2025 Leading Edge fellow and a 2025-2027 Berkeley Chancellor’s Postdoctoral fellow.