Dr. Travis Walton is a structural biologist whose research explores the molecular mechanisms of the cellular cytoskeleton in health and disease.

Dr. Walton earned his B.A.in chemistry and biochemistry/molecular biology from Lewis & Clark College and his Ph.D. in biological and biomedical sciences from Harvard Medical School in the lab of Dr. Jack W. Szostak. He then joined the lab of Dr. Alan Brown at Harvard Medical School as a postdoctoral fellow. While there, he leveraged cryo-EM to develop the first full atomic model of the axoneme, the cytoskeletal “backbone” of cilia and flagella. In 2020, Dr. Walton was awarded the prestigious Helen Hay Whitney Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in recognition of his research accomplishments.

In 2024, Dr. Walton joined Van Andel Institute’s Department of Structural Biology as an assistant professor. His lab harnesses native methodologies to extract protein complexes from cellular sources for structural and biochemical analyses.