When Irini Topalidou was a PhD student at the University of Crete, she fell in love. C. Elegance After attending an EMBO workshop on model systems. He appreciated the model organism’s rapid life cycle, genetic traceability, and ease of handling. Worked with him. C. elegans For eight years as a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University where he studied how neurons develop and form networks that contribute to behavior. She was happy and not looking for change.
Still, the typical—and often expected—educational trajectory was graduate school, postdoc, then faculty, so he sought a position where he could be in a lab and closely involved with experiments. Topalidou previously held a position as a staff scientist at the University of Washington and now at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center. There, she continues to use C. Elegance as a genetic model and studies how the proteasome is regulated under different conditions as part of Nic Lehbach’s group.
Although staff scientist positions are relatively rare, she feels “valued and really appreciated” and doesn’t feel like she’s “a postdoc who stays a postdoc forever.” Since becoming a staff scientist, she has advocated for the need for these positions by speaking and writing about STEM education and career choices. The nature, Scienceand our own From Gene to Genome Blog
He believes that staff scientists can play a vital role in a lab, where PIs must balance research production and mentorship. “It’s really challenging because the pressure on PIs to write grants and bring money to the lab is extreme…and it’s very difficult to be able to combine that with proper mentoring,” she adds, “staff scientists in the lab can support the students and act as an intermediary between the PI and the trainee.”
A large part of his role is to mentor trainees in his lab and throughout the division. Topalidou, the recipient of the 2026 GSA Mentorship Award, now divides her time, devoting about two-thirds to research and the remaining third to mentoring. Her current advising load includes four undergraduates, two graduate students, and one rotating student in the lab while she continues to mentor trainees from her previous labs.
“I try to inspire independence,” she says. “This is something that is very important to me and mine. [the mentees]”Training mentees to think through experiments on their own first can make them more confident in their abilities, while for Topalidou, it gives him more time to focus on his research.
Andrea Calixto, a professor at Valparaiso University and an investigator at Valparaiso’s Center for Interdisciplinary Neuroscience, was a PhD student in the lab where Topalidou did his postdoctoral research. She describes Topalidou as a natural mentor with a “very unique ability to listen to people”. When Calixto wrote her first paper, she didn’t quite know how to approach it and Topalidou was the first to give her feedback. “It was her way of giving me feedback that really empowered me… my paper definitely needed work, but she made me feel like I could really do it,” she recalls. Although his career has taken him to different institutions, Calixto still turns to Topalidou for advice on grants, experiments, and relationships with other colleagues.
In addition to being a mentor to trainees who pass through his lab, Topalidou also maintains a strong presence in Seattle. C. Elegance Meeting, a monthly gathering of about 15 C. Elegance Labs in the Pacific Northwest. Akanksha Singhvi, an associate professor at the Fred Hutch Cancer Center and an adjunct professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine who organizes the meeting, met Topalido through a mutual friend soon after he arrived at Fred Hutch. Topalidou offered to help him set up his own lab and, years later, had a brief stint there—during which he co-authored two publications and trained lab members in new techniques. Singhvi described Topalido as a “sunny person” with a “very positive energy” that persisted despite experimental setbacks. Although Topalidou spent a short time in his lab, Singhvi noted that it was via Seattle. C. Elegance Met that she really got to know him through group discussions and feedback sessions. “How she interacts and engages with my lab is basically what she does with the entire Pacific Northwest. C. Elegance community,” says Singhvi.
Reflecting on her career so far, Topalidou says, “What an interesting journey it’s been. It doesn’t have to be a journey that’s routine for it to be fascinating.”
Please join us in congratulating Irini Topalidou on receiving the Genetics Society of America Mentorship Award for her outstanding contributions. C. Elegance community and beyond.
