Growing up near Washington, DC, Iris Stone thought she might be a writer or a lawyer and entered college as a government major. But a pivot to physics — which she'd heard described as "a major in problem solving" — set her on a different path, one that eventually led to a PhD in computational neuroscience. That shift, nearly a decade ago, was driven by a deep desire to positively impact human health, a throughline that has guided her path ever since.

"I learned science was more likely to be grounded in facts and truth-seeking," said Stone.

I love research: the continual learning, the meticulous nature of the work, and the opportunity to push the boundaries of what we know. At my core, I'm a very analytical person.‍

What helps set Stone apart is that her drive for solutions has always been matched by an entrepreneurial instinct.  While a full-time student working in a lab, she ran her own writing and research business with up to a dozen subcontractors, producing white papers, blog posts, and proposals on everything from healthcare to the tourism industry in Macau, China. That combination of scientific rigor and business instinct has defined her career ever since.

Stone brought both skills to the Allen Institute as a Shanahan Fellow, a position she learned about from former fellow Ryan Raut. She liked the fellowship's mix of structure and freedom, which was well-suited to her range of interests.

bringing new perspectives to science

"I think it's critical to take your own ideas and bring those to the investigators who are already doing work that they've scoped out over a five- to 10-year period and find alignment between those things," Stone said.

Over three years, she pursued that alignment across several projects. In her first year, she collaborated with scientists in the Allen Institute’s Neural Dynamics accelerator and gene therapy researchers to study the role of neuromodulators during learning in mice that have a genetic similarity to humans with intellectual disabilities like autism. In addition, she and a research assistant developed a tool for tracking and modifying mouse behavior during decision-making tasks.  

More recently, she joined the Seattle Alzheimer's Disease (SEA-AD) Brain Cell Atlas consortium, where she helped develop a deep machine learning method to understand how gene expression changes at the level of specific cell types as Alzheimer's disease progresses.

using neuroscience data to support disease research

"We’re trying to understand the genetic underpinnings of those changes," Stone said. "This type of work is useful for target identification. The process of finding specific genetic and/or cellular targets for disease-modifying therapies is generally considered the first step in the long pipeline of drug development to get new medicines to patients."

She hopes to publish their findings as an open-source method that researchers can use to identify and validate targets for Alzheimer's and other neurological conditions.

Outside the Institute, Stone continues to bridge science and industry. She has worked as a contract science writer for the Washington Research Foundation, which helps local research institutions license their technologies. Stone also volunteers with Nucleate, a nonprofit that guides early-stage biotech startups emerging from Seattle academic institutions.

At the conclusion of her fellowship, Stone joined Beacon Biosignals, as a Neuroscientist III in External Scientific Programs. The neurotechnology startup develops EEG technology and AI-driven analytics to track changes in brain activity. The company says this precision-medicine work is aimed at transforming how neurological and psychiatric diseases are diagnosed and treated in response to drugs being tested in clinical trials. For Stone, the move also brings her closer to the patients her research aims to help.

"My position is a blend of science, business development, communication, and strategy, a great place for me to be in my career right now." She adds that her work is at the intersection of the fields she cares about most: computational neuroscience, translational medicine, and business development and partnering.

Stone is grateful for the breadth of experience the Shanahan Fellowship gave her, along with a clear philosophy about how to make the most of a nonlinear career path. When she recently shared her new role publicly, she credited the friends and colleagues across the Institute who supported her along the way: “Thanks to many of my friends and colleagues across the institute for your support.”

Looking back, she sees the fellowship not just as a research opportunity, but as a place where she could test ideas, build relationships, and clarify what kind of career she wanted to pursue.

"If you have a flexible mindset and can find pockets of opportunities to discover something worthwhile, then there are a lot of advantages to that."

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