Dr. Carol Schuurmans is the Dixon Family Chair in Ophthalmology Research and Senior Scientist at the Sunnybrook Research Institute. She completed her BSc and MSc degrees in Microbiology at the University of Alberta and her PhD degree in Medical Genetics at the University of Toronto. She then undertook postdoctoral studies at the Institut de Génétique et de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire in Strasbourg, France. Dr. Schuurmans joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Calgary as an Assistant Professor in 2001, and became full Professor in 2014. In July, 2016, Dr. Schuurmans joined the Sunnybrook Research Institute and became full Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Toronto. Her research is focused on the specification of neural cell fates and the control of tissue morphogenesis in the developing central nervous system, in particular in the retina and neocortex. She is now applying her knowledge of neural development to understand the injury response, and to create lineage conversion strategies for cell replacement therapies.