[6] [7] [8] [9] Gia Voeltz grew up in several different states including Indiana, Hawaii, Minnesota and Upstate New York, where she graduated from Chenango Forks High School.

Gia Voeltz was trained as an RNA biologist but made a major switch in scientific sub-fields when she moved to Tom Rapoport’s lab as a postdoc to study how organelles get their shape.

Her lab leveraged spinning disk confocal microscopy to visualize the reticulon-generated dynamic tubular ER network in live cells at high resolution.

[3][4] Multi-color live cell fluorescence imaging complemented by high resolution electron microscopy and tomography revealed that the vast majority of endosomes and mitochondria are tethered to the ER at contact sites.

[6] Her lab has gone on to show that ER contact sites also regulate early and late endosome fission,[7][8] RNA granule division,[9] and mitochondrial fusion.