Nancy Papalopulu is distinguished for her significant contributions to our understanding of the formation of the nervous system during embryonic development. Her recent work elucidated the mechanisms that preserve neural stem cells, including the dynamic properties of asymmetrically distributed proteins and the dynamic control of gene expression. Her earlier work on the patterning the nervous system characterized for the first time the unique evolutionary conservation of the structure and expression of a cluster of homeotic genes, which initiated a major new direction of research. In addition, she is widely respected for developing reagents, resources and biological models that have benefited the broader biomedical scientific community.