Alison May, PhD

Alison May, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, and Otolaryngology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and a member of the Black Family Stem Cell Institute and the Institute of Airway Sciences. Her research program investigates the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern organ formation and regeneration in airway and oral epithelial tissues.

Dr. May received her PhD from King's College London, where she characterized the morphogenesis and temporal patterning of nasal and tracheal submucosal glands and identified signaling programs controlling their development. During her postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco, she defined regulatory mechanisms controlling multiple epithelial cell populations in embryonic and adult salivary glands, including neuronal interactions required for progenitor cell maintenance, lineage specification, and tissue repair.

Her current research is organized around two complementary areas. First, her lab investigates how tissue-resident immune cells shape epithelial organogenesis and regeneration. Using genetic models, live imaging, and single-cell and spatial transcriptomic approaches, her work defines how immune cells integrate into developing epithelial niches, instruct epithelial patterning decisions, and regulate tissue architecture during both development and repair.

Second, Dr. May studies rare epithelial cell populations of the airway and oral epithelium, with a particular focus on ionocytes. Her research aims to define how these low-abundance, specialized epithelial cells arise during development, how their lineage programs are regulated, and how they control epithelial function through ion transport, signaling, and interactions with neighboring cell types. Together, this work seeks to uncover how rare epithelial states contribute to epithelial organization, homeostasis, and disease susceptibility.

May Lab website: https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/maylab/