Erika received her BS in Zoology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. After graduating college, she was a technician in Dr. Carl Nathan’s lab at Weill Cornell Medical College, studying macrophage immune responses. Erika obtained her PhD in Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in Dr. Robert Schreiber’s laboratory, where she studied cytokine/JAK/STAT signaling during mammalian immune responses. For her postdoctoral training, she switched from mouse immunology to Drosophila genetics and was a Jane Coffin Childs Fellow in Dr. Norbert Perrimon's lab at Harvard Medical School. During her postdoc, she studied how cytokine signaling regulates organ size in flies. Since 2002, Erika has led her own lab in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine, where she is now a Full Professor. Erika’s research is focused on stem cell competition, dynamics and plasticity in the Drosophila testis. Erika is an active member of local and national fly communities. She has chaired sessions at national fly meetings, was a Chair of the Larry Sandler committee, and was Chair of the organizing committee for the 2022 Fly Meeting. She has written reviews on cell competition and JAK/STAT signaling, stem cell biology, and has trained dozens of budding Drosophila researchers (high school, undergraduate, graduate, and postdoc) in her laboratory.