This thesis represents the culmination of my PhD journey. To begin, I want to thank my parents, siblings, extended family, and most of all, my wife Krista, for endless support and encouragement through this marathon process. I feel extremely grateful to have such wonderful people in my life.During my PhD, I have had the great privilege of working with a large set of talented researchers across several institutions. As you may know, conducting an extended academic research project involves many challenges. Timelines are often tight, experiments that 'should' succeed often fail, and Reviewer #2 usually hasn't had enough coffee. Despite these obstacles, I have been fortunate to benefit from and learn from the patience, enthusiasm, and creative ideas of my mentors and co-authors.First, I want to thank my advisors Deniz Erdo gmus ¸, Robin Walters, and Jan-Willem van de Meent. Without their support, none of the work in this thesis would have been possible. This includes mundane elements like funding and organization, and more exciting elements such as iterating on research questions and experiments. I have learned a tremendous amount from each of them, and having the benefit of advice and mentorship from three fantastic researchers with different backgrounds and expertise has been an important advantage for me.Next, I want to thank my co-authors 1 from research described in this thesis and from other projects. People are listed here according to their affiliation when we worked together.