The overarching focus of our research program is to address how the complex and varied body plans of vertebrate animals arise during embryonic development. The coordinated cell shape changes and cell movements that constitute morphogenesis generate the structure of tissues and organs in all animals. Concurrent with morphogenesis, is the specification of cell identities. Together, morphogenesis and cell fate specification underlie the transformation of a simple embryo into a complex, well-patterned adult, and when they go wrong, profound developmental defects result. We examine these processes in the experimentally tractable zebrafish embryo to reveal fundamental cellular properties and molecular mechanisms of morphogenesis and tissue patterning that are relevant for understanding animal development in general.