She is a New York Stem Cell Foundation Robertson Neuroscience Investigator[1][2] and holds the Hannah C. Kinney, MD Chair in Pediatric Pathology Research at Boston Children's Hospital.
[5] Lehtinen did a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Anna-Elina Lehesjoki at the University of Helsinki in Finland where she discovered a physiological mechanism underlying progressive myoclonus epilepsy.
[6] She then continued her postdoctoral work with Christopher A. Walsh at Boston Children's Hospital, discovering that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) affects the proliferation of neural progenitor cells during brain development.
[8] This award funded her transition from postdoctoral fellow to assistant professor as she launched her independent laboratory at Boston Children's Hospital studying CSF-mediated signaling during development.
[12] Her work has also identified mechanistic underpinnings of developmental abnormalities including choroid plexus and ciliary body tumorigenesis [13] and microcephaly in LIG4 syndrome[14] Lehtinen was a recipient of the 2017 Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.