Max grew up in Westfield, New Jersey. He attended Columbia University, where he majored in Biochemistry and Computer Science and conducted research in the labs of Liz Miller and Dana Pe’er. His interests in the intersection of cell biology and computational methods led him to join Jonathan Weissman’s lab at the University of California, San Francisco, first as an undergraduate researcher and then as a graduate student in the MD/PhD program. In the Weissman lab, Max developed CRISPR interference and activation screening, methods for systematically manipulating the expression of each gene in the genome. Among many other applications, he used these tools to identify new functional non-coding RNA genes and study gene-gene interactions.
After medical school, Max completed residency in the Boston Children’s Hospital Combined Pediatrics/Clinical Genetics program. During this training, he developed a particular interest in genetic disorders of chromatin biology and joined the EpiChroma clinic with Dr. Anne O’Donnell. He did postdoctoral work with Jason Buenrostro at Harvard University and the Broad Institute, where he co-developed a new computational method for dissecting the organization of DNA regulatory elements in cell differentiation and disease using ATAC-seq data. He started his lab in July 2025 with the goal of bringing functional genomics and epigenomics tools together to study basic biological problems underlying chromatinopathies and developing new tools to advance the study and practice of human genetics.
Outside of the lab, Max enjoys spending time in the parks around Boston and Brookline with his wife, toddler, and puppy.