University of California, San Francisco – PhD
University of Oxford – MBioch

Dr. Cecily Burrill has been teaching chemistry and biology at JCHS since 2013. Prior to that, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California – San Francisco (UCSF), a lab instructor at the University of San Francisco, and tutored students at a number of local independent high schools. She earned her Ph.D. in Genetics from UCSF in 2012 and her undergraduate M. Bioch. in Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry from the University of Oxford in 2004. Between her stints in higher education, she spent a year living in Washington, DC and doing research in human genetics at the National Institutes of Health. As a researcher, in addition to human samples and cell lines, she studied a variety of model organisms (including fruit flies and thale cress) and pathogens (including the virus that causes poliomyelitis, the bacterium that causes tuberculosis, and the fungus that causes histoplasmosis).

Dr. Burrill was born and raised in San Francisco (except for a two-year sojourn in Melbourne, Australia). She is an active member of the alumni associations at San Francisco University High School and the Hamlin School. In her free time, she enjoys knitting and playing contract bridge. She is also proficient in French.