MBL Accolades

Francesco DeMayo, faculty member and former director of MBL’s Frontiers in Reproduction (FIR) course, has received the highest award bestowed by the Society for the Study of Reproduction, the 2024 Carl G. Hartman Award. The award “recognizes a career of research and scholarly achievements in the field of reproductive biology” and cites DeMayo’s research on “elucidating the molecular mechanisms underlying normal uterine physiology and pregnancy, with a specific emphasis on the roles of the sex steroids progesterone and estrogen.” DeMayo, laboratory chief and senior investigator at the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, directed FIR from 2005-2008 and has served on the course faculty for 13 summers since 2005.  Also honored by the Society for the Study of Reproduction this year are Shu Xiao (FIR alumnus, 2011; TA or lecturer 2016-2019, 2022) who received the society’s Virendra B. Mahesh New Investigator Award; Paula Cohen, FIR faculty 2010-2017, who received the Trainee Mentoring Award; and Xiaoqiu Wang (FIR alumnus 2014; Frontiers in Stem Cells and Regeneration course alumnus 2014) who received the Janice Bahr Junior Scientist Travel Award. Read more about the awardees here. (April 4, 2024)

The 2024 recipients of The Brain Prize, the world's largest brain research prize awarded by the Lundbeck Foundation, are all faculty affiliates of the MBL. They are Larry Abbott of Columbia University, Terrence Sejnowski of the Salk Institute and Haim Sompolinsky of Harvard University, recognized for their "pioneering contributions to the field of computational and theoretical neuroscience." Abbott has served on the faculty of the MBL's Neural Systems and Behavior course and Methods in Computational Neuroscience (MCN) course since 1992. Sejnowski, a 1978 alumnus of the MBL Neurobiology course, has also served on the MCN faculty for many years since 1982. Sompolinsky  has served on the MCN faculty since 1993, and also teaches in the Brains, Minds and Machines course at MBL (1993-2023). Read more about the awardees and the prize here. (March 29, 2024)

Loretta Roberson, associate scientist in the MBL's Bell Center, has been named a Sustainable Minerals, Metals, and Materials Fellow by the Research Corporation for Scientific Advancement (RCSA). This fellowship supports Roberson's research on how seaweeds might play a role in the development and use of materials that enhance new technologies to transition to a sustainable and low-carbon energy system. The RCSA is a foundation providing catalytic funding for innovative scientific research and the development of academic scientists. Read more here. (March 29, 2024)

Emerson Conrad-Rooney of Boston University, a 2018 graduate of the MBL Semester in Environmental Science (SES), has received a 2024 Graduate Student Policy Award from the Ecological Society of America. The awardees are engaged in advocacy with an interest in science policy and will travel to Washington, D.C., for policy, communication and career training followed by meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. In SES, Conrad-Rooney worked with MBL Distinguished Scientists Jerry Melillo and John Hobbie to explore plant root-fungi symbiosis and its interaction with nitrogen and calcium cycles. Conrad-Rooney is currently a Ph.D. student in Pamela Templer's lab at BU, where she is studying the effects of climate change on carbon sequestration in New England forests. Their long-term goal is to become a professor of forest ecology and bring experience in both ecology and science policy to their teaching and research. Read more about Conrad-Rooney and the other awardees here. (March 15, 2024)

Mandë Holford of Hunter College/CUNY Graduate Center, a Whitman Scientist and former E.E. Just Fellow at MBL, has been named a juror for the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Holford is on the jury for the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize, which recognizes "an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer or mathematician as a major character." Read more here. (Jan. 4, 2024)

Two alumni of the MBL Logan Science Journalism Program, Sarah Kaplan of The Washington Post and freelance journalist Paul Tullis, have received 2023 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards for their distinguished reporting. Kaplan and colleagues received a Silver Award (Science Reporting, Large Outlet) for a comprehensive multimedia story on Crawford Lake in Ontario "which has evidence that humans have changed the planet’s chemistry and climate in such fundamental ways that many scientists believe they mark a new chapter in geologic time called the Anthropocene." Tullis, writing for Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, received a Silver Award (Magazine) for his story on avian influenza, "Is the Next Pandemic Brewing on the Netherlands’ Poultry Farms?” Read more here. (November 10, 2023)

Valerie Tornini of Yale University (MBL Embryology course alumna, 2017) has been named a 2023 Wunderkind by STAT News. These are "the most impressive doctors and researchers on the cusp of launching their careers, but not yet fully independent ... All are blazing new trails as they attempt to answer big questions in science and medicine." Tornini, a developmental biologist, uses zebrafish as a model to study the gene regulatory networks that establish the cellular diversity of a developing brain. She has also served as a teaching assistant in the MBL's Zebrafish Development and Genetics course (2018-2019, 2022). Read more here.  (October 27, 2023)

Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) has announced its 2023 Hanna H. Gray Fellowships and several of the new fellows and/or their faculty mentors are MBL faculty or alumni. The Hanna H. Gray Fellows Program provides each fellow with up to $1.5 million in support for up to eight years, spanning postdoctoral training through transition to an early career faculty position. Congratulations to new fellow Raul Arturo Ramos-Garcia of University of California, Berkeley (MBL Neurobiology course manager 2022 and 2023, teaching assistant 2019 and 2021, and alumnus 2018) and his faculty mentor at UC-Berkeley, Ellen Lumpkin (MBL Neurobiology course director 2018-2022, faculty 2015 and 2017; Neural Systems and Behavior course faculty 2016). Other MBL-affiliated mentors of 2023 Hannah Gray Fellows are Anita Sil of UC-Berkeley (MBL Molecular Mycology course faculty 2001, 2012); Phillip Cleves of Carnegie Science (MBL Molecular and Cell Biology of Symbiosis course director, 2023); Rajat Rohatgi of Stanford University (MBL Applied and Quantitative Light Microscopy course alumna, 1999); and Kerwyn Casey Huang of Stanford University (MBL Physiology course faculty, 2010-2012, 2017). Read more about the 2023 fellows and their mentors here. (Sept. 22, 2023)

Maryn McKenna, senior writer at WIRED and advisor to the MBL's Logan Science Journalism Program, has received the 2023 Victor Cohn Prize for Excellence in Medical Science Reporting from the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing. Read more here. (Sept. 1, 2023)

Cristina Roman-Vendrell, a postdoctoral scientist in the MBL's Eugene Bell Center, has been selected for the National Institute of Health's MOSAIC program (Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers). This program is part of NIH’s efforts to enhance diversity within the academic biomedical research workforce, and is designed to facilitate the transition of promising postdoctoral researchers from diverse backgrounds into independent, tenure-track or equivalent research-intensive faculty positions. Read more here. (July 19, 2023)

The National Academy of Sciences has announced the election of 120 new members and 23 international members “in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.” Membership in the Academy is considered to be one of the highest honors a scientist can receive. Congratulations to former MBL Trustee Claire Fraser and several other MBL alumni, faculty and researchers who were elected to the Academy this year: Barbara A. Block (Alumna, Electron Microscopy in Biological Science, 1982); Moses V. Chao (Course Faculty, Pathogenesis of Neuroimmunologic Disease, 2001, 2005, 2007); Marla Feller (Course Faculty, Neurobiology, 1999); Claire M. Fraser (MBL Trustee, 2000-2004; Course Director, Advances in Genome Tech/Bioinformatics, 2002, 2004; Course Faculty, Molecular Evolution, 1999-2001; Alumna, Microinjection Techniques, 1990); Ursula W. Goodenough (Course Faculty, Microbiology, 1984); James Jones (Course Faculty, Summer Program in Neuroscience, Excellence and Success, 2002-2005); Robert E. Kass (Course Faculty, Neurobiology, 1987-1989; Methods in Computational Neuroscience, 2003); Neuroinformatics, 2004-2009); Andre Nussenzweig (Alumnus, Physiology, 1994); Eduardo A. Perozo (Course Director, University of Chicago Bootcamp & Programs, 2021; Course Faculty, Biology of the Inner Ear, 2011); Naomi Pierce (Alumna, Molecular Evolution, 1991); Helen M. Piwnica-Worms (MBL Summer Fellow, 1989); Michael N. Shadlen (Course Faculty, Methods in Computational Neuroscience, 2015, 2019, 2021); Elly M. Tanaka (Alumna, Embryology, 1988); Elizabeth Vierling (Alumna, Physiology, 1979); Michelle D. Wang (Alumna, Physiology, 2007); Anne D. Yoder (Whitman Scientist, 2011, 2016, 2017; Course Director, Molecular Evolution, 2017;  Course Faculty, Molecular Evolution, 2002-2011, 2014-2016, 2018; Alumna, Molecular Evolution, 1994). (May 12, 2023)

Numerous MBL community members are among the accomplished individuals elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) in 2023. The Academy is an honorary society, with members elected from the non-profit, private, and public sectors, and an independent policy organization with initiatives in the arts, democracy, education, global affairs, and science. Congratulations to the following MBL affiliates to be elected this year. Class 1 (Mathematical and Physical Sciences): Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan, Physiology course faculty 2004, Brains, Minds, and Machines course director 2014, and Physical Biology of the Cell course faculty 2016: Class 2 (Biological Sciences): James Briscoe, Gene Regulatory Networks course faculty 2012-2017, 2019; Frank Constantini, Embryology course faculty 1984, 1986; Amy Gladfelter, Physiology course faculty 2016, 2021-2023, Molecular Mycology course faculty 2013, Physiology course alumna 1998, MBL New Research Organisms Committee Member, MBL Imaging Committee Member, MBL Society, former MBL Fellow; Tobias Meyer, Physiology course faculty 2004, 2010; Lilianna Solnica-Krezel, Zebrafish Development & Genetics course faculty 2012-2019, 2022; Hollis Cline, Neurobiology course director 2008-2009, Neural Systems & Behavior course faculty 1989-1994, Whitman Scientist 1993; James DiCarlo, Brains, Minds and Machines course faculty 2015-2018; Marla Feller, Neurobiology course faculty, 1999; Mary Beth Hatten, Neurobiology course alumna 1975, Neurobiology course faculty 1986, Neural Systems and Behavior course faculty 1992; Ramon Latorre, Neurobiology course faculty 1982; Wade Regehr, Grass Fellow 1988;  Erin Schuman, Neural Systems and Behavior course alumna 1988, Neural Systems and Behavior course faculty 1995; Louis Muglia, Frontiers in Reproduction course faculty 2016; Andre Nussenzweig, Physiology Course alumnus 1994; Ronald Germain, Biology of Parasitism course faculty 1987. (April 28, 2023)

Melina Hale has been appointed the next dean of the College (the undergraduate school) at the University of Chicago. Hale, who served as co-interim director of the MBL in 2017-18, is currently vice provost of the University and the William Rainey Harper Professor in the Department of Organismal Biology and Anatomy. A distinguished neurobiologist, Hale has had a long association with the MBL as a former Grass Fellow (2000), faculty member in the Neural Development & Genetics of Zebrafish course (2004) and research collaborator with MBL scientists, and she serves on the MBL Council. Hale will succeed John W. Boyer, the Martin A. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of History, who has served as dean of the College for more than 30 years. Read more here. (April 14, 2023)

Two MBL faculty alumni have received the 2023 Brain Prize for their research on brain development and synaptic plasticity. They are Michael Greenberg of Harvard Medical School (Neurobiology course faculty, 1997-2000) and Erin Schuman of Max Planck Institute for Brain Research (Neural Systems & Behavior course alumna 1988, faculty 1995). Along with Christine Holt of University of Cambridge, Greenberg and Schuman will share the ~$1.45M prize, which is considered among the most prestigious in neuroscience. (March 24, 2023)

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) named a new cohort of AAAS Fellows in October 2022, and several of them are MBL affiliates. Election as a Fellow “honors members whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society have distinguished them among their peers and colleagues.” Congratulations to the following MBL course faculty and alumni who were elected: AAAS Section on Biological Sciences : Carol Arnosti of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (alumna, Microbiology, 1989); Stuart Brody of University of California, San Diego (alumnus, Physiology, 1960); Enrique de la Cruz of Yale University (faculty, Physiology, 2018; faculty, Physical Biology of the Cell, 2017-2018);  Rebecca Wright Heald, University of California, Berkeley (faculty, Physiology, 2004-2005); Irene Lucile Garcia Newton of Indiana University, Bloomington (alumna, Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy, 2011); Leslie Rissler of National Science Foundation (alumna, Molecular Evolution, 1998); Pamela Soltis of University of Florida (faculty, Molecular Evolution, 1997); Carmen Williams of NIH National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (faculty, Frontiers in Reproduction,  2012, 2016-2019). AAAS Section on Geology and Geography: Doug Erwin, Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (faculty, Gene Regulatory Networks, 2015, 2018-2019). AAAS Section on Medical Sciences: Tobias Hohl of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (faculty, Molecular Mycology, 2009; alumnus, Molecular Mycology, 2005); Asma Nusrat of University of Michigan (alumna, Microinjection, 1991). AAAS Section on Neuroscience: William Carlezon of Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital (faculty, Neurobiology of Brain Dysfunction, 2011). AAAS Section on Physics: James Glazier of Indiana University Bloomington (alumnus, Neural System and Behavior, 1991); Lena Kourkoutis of Cornell University (alumna, Physiology, 2012); Jennifer Ross of Syracuse University (lecturer, Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy, 2016; faculty, AQLM, 2015, 2017). (March 2, 2023)

Several early-career MBL community members have been named 2023 Sloan Research Fellows, whose "achievements and potential place them among the next generation of scientific leaders in the U.S. and Canada." Fellows receive $75,000, which may be spent over a two-year term on any expense supportive of their research. Among the 125 fellows named this year are MBL course faculty and alumni Andrea M. Gomez of University of California, Berkeley (faculty, Neurobiology, 2022); Ann Kennedy of Northwestern University (alumna, Methods in Computational Neuroscience, 2011); Jeffrey Markowitz of Georgia Institute of Technology (alumnus, Neuroinformatics, 2010) and Cengiz Pehlevan of Harvard University (alumnus, Methods in Computational Neuroscience, 2011). Read more about the Sloan Research Fellowships here. (March 2, 2023)

Patricia Hunt, Regents Professor at Washington State University, has received the March of Dimes 2022 Award in Developmental Biology. The award, which carries a $150,000 prize, honors Hunt's "instrumental discoveries in how prenatal development is impacted by aging, mistakes in cell division, and environmental exposures. This annual award honors an outstanding scientist who has advanced the science that underlies our understanding of pregnancy, birth and prenatal development." Hunt is co-director of the MBL course "Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: Hazards and Opportunities." (Jan. 19, 2023)

The late Roger Tsien of University of California-San Diego is a 2023 inductee to the National Inventors Hall of Fame (NIHM). Tsien, the late MBL Distinguished Scientist Osamu Shimomura, and Martin Chalfie of Columbia University received the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein, which revolutionized biological imaging. Other 2023 NIHM inductees were involved with the discovery and development of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing and modified mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines, among other inventions. Tsien served on the faculty of the MBL's Optical Microscopy & Imaging in the Biomedical Sciences course (1989-1990) and was a lecturer in MBL Neurobiology (1997, 2000-2004). (Jan. 17, 2023)

Mandë Holford of Hunter College/CUNY Graduate Center, the 2022 E.E. Just Fellow in the MBL Whitman Center, has been named a juror for the Sundance Film Festival. She will be judging in the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize category. This prize is given annually to a feature film that focuses on science or technology as a theme, or depicts a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character. (Jan. 13, 2023)

MBL Trustee Emeritus George Langford has received the 2022 Public Service Award from the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) "for his 50 years of service to the ASCB and to science." "Along with being a distinguished scientist, your career can be described in one word: Service,” said ASCB CEO Rebecca Alvania at the award presentation ceremony. Langford, professor emeritus of biology and dean emeritus at Syracuse University, is a MBL Society member, a former MBL Whitman Investigator, and an alumnus of the MBL Physiology and Neurobiology courses. (Dec. 1, 2022)

Jasmin Camacho, an alumna of the MBL's Workshop on Molecular Evolution (2016) and Embryology course (2015), has been named a 2022 Wunderkind by the publication STAT. (Nov. 15, 2022)

Sally Kornbluth, former co-director of the Biomedical course in the MBL Logan Science Journalism Program (2006), has been selected as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Read more about Kornbluth here. (Oct. 27, 2022)

MBL Fellow Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado was awarded the 2023 Vilcek Foundation Prize in Biomedical Sciences "for his contributions to the field of regeneration—from the identification of genes that control regeneration in living organisms, to the potential for regenerative medicine to revolutionize how we treat disease in humans."  Awarded annually, the prizes recognize and celebrate the extraordinary contributions of immigrant professionals to the arts, culture, and society in the United States. Sánchez Alvarado is executive director and chief scientific officer of the Stowers Institute for Medical Research, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. (Oct. 18, 2022)

MBL Director Nipam Patel has been awarded the 2021 A.O. Kowalevsky Medal for his comparative studies on flies, butterflies, and crustaceans. The Kowalevsky Medal is awarded annually by the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists to recognize significant contributions to evolutionary developmental biology. The award was established in the 1910s in honor of Alexander Kowalevsky, a Russian embryologist and one of the founders of comparative developmental embryology. It stopped being awarded in 1914 due to World War I and the Russian Revolution, but was revived in 2001 for the 100th anniversary of Kowalevsky's death. Patel accepted the award virtually at the Society for Developmental Biology's 81st Annual Meeting in July. (July 17, 2022)

MBL Senior Scientist Roger Hanlon has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Cephalopod International Advisory Council (CIAC). Lifetime achievement awards are conferred on researchers who have made outstanding contributions to cephalopod research and/or the ideals and aims of CIAC. Awardees are granted honorary life membership in CIAC. Read more about the CIAC here. (May 24, 2022)

Two members of the MBL community have been elected to the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and publisher of the Science family of journals. Keith Yamamoto of the University of California, San Francisco (MBL Embryology faculty '87 and '88) was named President-elect of the AAAS board, and MBL Fellow Jane Maienschein of Arizona State University was named a board member. Maienschein also directs the MBL History Project in collaboration with the MBL.  Read the full AAAS announcement here. (May 11, 2022)

MBL Research Scientist Irina Yushenova has been named to the Early Career Leadership Program by the Genetics Society of America (GSA). Participants receive training and mentoring while serving on committees charged with understanding the needs, interests, concerns, and challenges of early career scientist members of the GSA. Read rest of the story here. (March 4, 2022)

Congratulations to recipients of the 2021 Kavli Science Journalism Awards, presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Awardees include the producers of the film “Human Nature,” which tells the story of the discovery of CRISPR and was a project first nurtured in meetings in Woods Hole (Gold Award, Video In-Depth Reporting) and MBL Logan Science Journalism alumnus Michael Werner (Gold Award, Video, Spot News Reporting). (Feb. 15, 2022)

Clifford Brangwynne of Princeton University has been awarded the 6th annual Okazaki Award from Nagoya University, Japan, for his pioneering work in “Liquid Phase Condensation in Cell Physiology and Disease,” which had origins as a 2008 MBL Physiology course project. (Feb. 3, 2022)

Undergraduate Ella Lemely-Fry (Lawrence University) received the “Friends Award” for excellence in her MBL Semester in Environmental Science (SES) symposium presentation. For her 2021 SES research project, Lemely-Fry used novel fluorescent imaging techniques to explore the association of soil minerals with organic matter, considering implications for carbon storage and nutrient cycling. This award is bestowed annually to a student enrolled in SES by the Friends of the MBL. (Jan. 7, 2022)

MBL Trustee Dyann Wirth of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health was awarded the 2021 Walter Reed Medal from the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. (Nov. 30, 2021)

The American Society for Cell Biology has received a National Science Foundation grant of more than $701K to establish a collaborative network of experts to identify evidence-based inclusion strategies that scientific societies can deploy to address persistent cultural challenges preventing inclusive practices from taking root. Among the members of the network are Linda Hyman, Burroughs Wellcome Director of Education, Marine Biological Laboratory, and Jennifer R. Morgan, Senior Scientist and Director for The Eugene Bell Center for Regenerative Biology and Tissue Engineering, Marine Biological Laboratory. (Nov. 30, 2021)

Nancy Hopkins of MIT was awarded the 2021 STAT Biomedical Innovation Award, presented to “biology and medicine researchers whose work has helped define their field.” Hopkins co-directed the MBL Zebrafish Development and Genetics course (1998-2000) and taught in the course in 2001 and 2003. (Nov. 30, 2021)

Sergio Iñiguez, a 2009 student in the MBL’s Summer Program in Neuroscience, Excellence, and Success (SPINES), received the National Award for Excellence in Innovative Advances in Health Research from the National Hispanic Science Network. He runs the Iñiguez Behavioral Neuroscience Lab at the University of Texas at El Paso. (Sept. 27, 2021)

Leslie B. Voshall of The Rockefeller University has been named Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Voshall has long been a member of the MBL community, having served on the faculty of the Neurobiology course (1994) and the Neural Systems and Behavior course (2005-2007) and presented Friday Evening Lectures in 2012 and 2020. Her first scientific experiences were at MBL in 1982, when she assisted in the Whitman Center labs of Philip Dunham and Gerald Weissmann. An enlightening interview with Voshall produced by the MBL History Project is here. (Sept. 17, 2021)

Every year, the Society for General Physiologists (SGP) awards a $500 scholarship and a one-year SGP membership to students accepted to one of the following MBL Advanced Research Training Courses: Embryology, Neural Systems & Behavior, Neurobiology, or Physiology. This year’s SGP-MBL Scholars are: Isabella Geata, PhD Candidate, Vanderbilt University; Hannah Martin, PhD Candidate at the University of Chicago; Louis Prahl, Postdoc, University of Pennsylvania; and Priscilla Yevoo, PhD Candidate, Stonybrook University. (Sept. 3, 2021)

Incoming University of Chicago President Paul Alivisatos accepted the Priestley Medal this month, the highest honor bestowed by the American Chemical Society, for his “foundational contributions” to nanoscience and chemistry. (Aug. 26, 2021)

Lily Hall, an undergraduate who is participating in the NSF-REU Biological Discovery in Woods Hole program at MBL this summer, has been named a Goldwater Scholar by the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Foundation. Hall is a student at University of Minnesota-Duluth mentored by Allen F. Mensinger and Monte Stewart. Her career goals are to obtain a Ph.D. in ecology, conduct research in mammal spatial ecology, and work with the next generation of scientists as a university professor. (Aug. 6, 2021)

Wendy and Eric Schmidt recently announced the 2021 cohort of Schmidt Science Fellows, “a group of 28 early-career scientists committed to harnessing interdisciplinary science to make a positive difference in the world.” Among them are Fatima Hussain of Harvard University (alumna, MBL Microbial Diversity, 2017) and Manuel Razo-Mejia of CalTech (alumnus, MBL Physiology, 2015; faculty, Physiology course and Physical Biology of the Cell course). (June 11, 2021)

Falmouth High School junior Axsel Jensen is a winner of a 2021-22 student competition for environmental grants awarded by The Marjot Foundation of Falmouth.  Jensen achieved top honors with his proposed work on the toxicity of road runoffs in the Waquoit Bay estuarine system. Jensen will be mentored by Kelsey Chenoweth of the Ecosystems Center at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole. The nonprofit Marjot Foundation supports environmental research proposed by and carried out by high school students from grades 9 through 11. (May 28, 2021)

Kate MacCord, co-principal investigator of the McDonnell Initiative at MBL, has received the 2021 School of Life Sciences Faculty Teaching Award from Arizona State University, where she teaches courses in the history of biology, history of medicine, and science and society. (April 29, 2021)

Two members of the MBL community have been named 2020 Allen Distinguished Investigators by the Paul G. Allen Foundation. This program supports “early-stage research with the potential to reinvent entire fields” with grants between $1 million and $1.5 million to individuals and scientific teams. The MBL affiliates who received awards are GW Gant Luxton of University of California-Davis (Whitman Scientist 2018; Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy course alumnus 2012) and Maho Niwa, University of California, San Diego (Optical Microscopy and Imaging in the Biomedical Sciences course alumna, 2003). (Oct. 16, 2020)

Cell Mentor/Cell Press recently published a list of “100 Inspiring Hispanic / Latinx Scientists in America,” which includes many familiar faces at MBL. Among them are MBL Fellows Daniel Colón-Ramos and Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado; the late Joe L. Martinez Jr., co-founder of the MBL SPINES course; Veronica G. Martinez Acosta, co-director of the Biological Discovery in Woods Hole Summer Opportunity for Undergraduate Research Program (NSF-REU); and Ulises Ricoy, director of outreach initiatives at the Grass Foundation; and many others. Congratulations to all! (Sept. 16, 2020)

Catherine Dulac of Harvard University/HHMI, a Whitman scientist at MBL in 2018, is one of four recipients of the prestigious Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Dulac was recognized for her work identifying brain circuits that control parenting behavior. (Sept. 16, 2020)

Daniella Hanacek of University of Maryland, a research assistant at the MBL Ecosystems Center in Ivan Valiela’s lab in 2017-2019, has received a Margaret A. Davidson Graduate Fellowship to conduct research at the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Maryland. Her work will focus on greenhouse gas fluxes and carbon sequestration in tidal marshes of Chesapeake Bay. (Aug. 21, 2020)

Clifford Brangwynne, Princeton University professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, is one of three recipients of 2020 Blavatnik National Awards in Life Sciences, the nation’s largest unrestricted scientific prize ($250,000) for young, faculty-level researchers. Brangwynne, a Whitman Center Fellow at the MBL, was recognized for “a discovery that upends previous understandings of the internal organization of cells,” which originated in the MBL Physiology course in 2008.

From the award announcement:

“Brangwynne has transformed the field of cell biology through a discovery that upends the understanding of the internal organization of cells. Brangwynne discovered that inside cells, biomolecules can merge to form liquid-like droplets that allow for the localization and compartmentalization of molecular interactions. The ability of these droplets to smoothly fuse and separate is critical for cell division and the development of embryos. Errors in this physical property may result in the formation of solid structures, such as the tangles and fibers found in Alzheimer’s disease, which can cause cell damage and death.

The Life Sciences Jury noted that Brangwynne’s work has influenced many areas of biology. “Clifford Brangwynne has fundamentally changed the way we think about scientific problems and biology,” said Elaine Fuchs, PhD, Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor at The Rockefeller University, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and Chair of the 2020 Blavatnik National Awards Life Sciences Jury. “Scientists, including myself, have become increasingly fascinated with thinking about how his findings relate to the scientific problems we study and how they relate to other kinds of fundamental biological processes.” (July 22, 2020)

MBL Fellow A. Murat Eren (Meren) of the University of Chicago has been named a 2020 Sloan Fellow. These two-year research fellowships recognize the potential of early-career scientists to make substantial contributions to their fields. Meren combines state-of-the-art computational strategies and molecular approaches to shed light on the ecology and evolution of microbial populations in a wide range of habitats. (May 1, 2020)

Meera Subramanian, alumna of the MBL’s Logan Science Journalism Program (2015) and former instructor in the MBL’s Semester in Environmental Science program, has been named president of the Society of Environmental Journalists. (May 1, 2020)

Deepak Krishnamurthy of Stanford University (MBL Physiology course, 2017) and Ben Winer of Princeton University (MBL Analytical and Quantitative Light Microscopy course, 2018) have been named 2020 Schmidt Science Fellows. These fellowships recognize early-career scientists who aim to harness interdisciplinary approaches to tackle long-term societal challenges. (May 1, 2020)