Dr. Gillette received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1976 and joined the faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) in 1978. She is a Professor in the Departments of Cell and Developmental Biology and Molecular and Integrative Physiology, the Colleges of Medicine and Liberal Arts and Sciences, and The Neuroscience Program at UIUC. Dr. Gillette has served as Head of Cell and Developmental Biology since 1998. She has been an Affiliate with the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (Neurotech Group) since 1988 and the Institute for Genomic Biology (Genomics of Neural & Behavioral Plasticity Theme), since its inception in 2003. Her many accomplishments were acknowledged by the University of Illinois with an appointment in 2004 as Alumni Professor of Cell and Developmental Biology.