Sarah did her PhD at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK and was a Beit Memorial Fellow at University College London. She started her group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in 2001. In 2013, she moved to the Wellcome Genome Campus where her group was joint between the EMBL-European Bioinformatics Institute and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and in 2016 was appointed Head of the Cellular Genetics programme at the Sanger. In 2024, Sarah took up a Chair in Stem Cell Medicine at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge Stem Cell Institute & Dept Medicine).

Sarah’s laboratory develops and applies cell atlas technologies to decipher human tissue architecture, with a particular focus on how cellular diversity is generated in the immune system and through development. Sarah is co-founder and co-leader of the international Human Cell Atlas consortium which aims to create reference maps for cells across all human tissues and has grown to include over three thousand members across the world. She also co-directs the CIFAR MacMillan Multiscale Human research programme. Her work has been recognised by numerous awards, including the EMBO Gold Medal, Genetics Society Mary Lyons Award, Biochemical Society GlaxoSmithKline Award, the FEBS|EMBO Women in Science Award among others. She is an EMBO Member, ISCB Fellow, and Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and Royal Society.