Dr. Dorothy (Dori) Schafer is a leader in the field studying microglia and neural-immune interactions within neural circuits. She received her bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience from Mount Holyoke College in 2001 and her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut Health Center in 2008. She then did her postdoctoral training at Boston Children’s Hospital in Dr. Beth Stevens’ laboratory. Here, she made the discovery that microglia, a resident brain macrophage, engulf and prune away synapses that form in excess in the developing brain via the complement cascade. Dr. Schafer joined UMass Chan Medical School in 2015 where she received several early career and mentoring awards and is now an Associate Professor in Neurobiology with tenure and the Molly McGovern Endowed Chair in Biomedical Research. Her laboratory continues to innovate molecular genetic and imaging approaches to interrogate microglia and immune signaling function in neurological disease with a focus on neurodegenerative disorders, including multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.