Biography

Dr. Ehrlich earned her B.S. in Biology from Yale University in 1997. As an undergraduate, she worked in Adrian Hayday's lab, studying gamma-delta T cell development and selection. This work piqued her interest in the complexity of cell fate decisions in the thymus. 

Dr. Ehrlich obtained her PhD in Immunology from Stanford University Medical School in 2002. While studying in Mark Davis' lab, she examined the dynamic spatio-temporal recruitment of signaling molecules to the immunological synapse of mature T cells and developing thymocytes. Following her graduate studies, she joined  Lewis Lanier's lab as a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, where she studied the role of NKG2D in co-stimulation of CD8+ T cells. 

In 2004, Dr. Ehrlich returned to Stanford as a postdoctoral fellow in Irv Weissman’s lab, where she pursued her interest in T cell development. In addition to identifying the lymphoid-restricted bone marrow precursor that seeds the thymus to initiate T cell differentiation, she established a 2-photon microscopy system to study the cellular and molecular cues that guide developing T cells through different microenvironments within the thymus to ensure their proper differentiation.

 In August of 2010, Dr. Ehrlich was recruited to the University of Texas at Austin, where she is now a Professor of Molecular Biosciences and of Oncology. She is also a member of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease and the Livestrong Cancer Institutes at the Dell Medical School. Her lab focuses on identifying the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern differentiation of diverse, self-tolerant T cells throughout the lifespan. The Ehrlich lab also investigates mechanisms by which myeloid cells support progression of the pediatric malignancy T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Current research in the lab includes investigation of Immune signatures of disease severity in COVID-19 patients.