Eileen Furlong is a developmental genomics biologist known for her research on genome regulation during embryonic development. Her group has illuminated general principles of developmental enhancers, how they function within the three-dimensional genome, and how they regulate developmental programs.  She pioneered the genome-wide dissection of developmental regulatory networks, revealing their complexity and mechanisms by which regulatory changes are propagated and buffered within developmental programs.

Eileen trained in Ireland (Ph.D. at University College Dublin) and the US (post-doc at Stanford University).  She then moved to Germany to establish her group at EMBL (European Molecular Biology Laboratory), Heidelberg in October 2002.

Eileen is head of the Genome Biology Department/Unit and Senior Scientist at EMBL She is an elected member of EMBO and the Academia Europaea, and has received several awards, including the 2022 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize.