News & HighlightsNews
Milestones
Awarded: C. David Allis, the Jonathan Kraft Prize for Excellence in Cancer Research, presented by the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. The newly established award celebrates achievements in cancer research and includes a monetary prize of $20,000, endowed by Robert Kraft, owner of th...
Fred Bohen, longtime Rockefeller administrator, dies
by AMELIA KAHANEY Frederick M. Bohen, who was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Rockefeller for many of the years between 1990 and 2005, died March 14 at his home in Manhattan at the age of 77. During his tenure at Rockefeller, Mr. Bohen served with five university president...
Obesity researcher and former hospital physician-in-chief Jules Hirsch dies
Jules Hirsch, an early leader in the study of human metabolism, died at age 88 in Englewood, New Jersey, after a long illness. His research, conducted at The Rockefeller University, helped establish the biological underpinnings of obesity, challenging the notion that the disease results from a la...
Agata Smogorzewska, who studies DNA repair, promoted to associate professor
Agata Smogorzewska, a physician-scientist and head of the Laboratory of Genome Maintenance, has been promoted to associate professor, effective July 1. Smogorzewska came to Rockefeller as a faculty member in 2009 to study DNA repair processes that occur during cellular replication. “The genome ...
Convocation 2015
When The Rockefeller University held its first Convocation in 1959, there were only five graduates. Fifty-six years later, as of Convocation on June 11, 2015, there are now 1,178 recipients of the Rockefeller University doctor of philosophy degree. The festivities began with a graduate luncheon i...
Honorary degrees awarded to three Pearl Meister Greengard laureates
by AMELIA KAHANEY In addition to 28 students, three trailblazing women in science received degrees from Rockefeller this year. In a tradition dating back more than 50 years, the university awarded honorary doctorate of science degrees to distinguished individuals who have made notable contributio...
David Rockefeller Fellowship awarded to third-year Robert Heler, a bacteriologist
by AMELIA KAHANEY Robert Heler, a graduate fellow in Luciano Marraffini’s Laboratory of Bacteriology,has been awarded the 2015 David Rockefeller Fellowship, given each year to an outstanding third-year student for demonstrating exceptional promise in science and leadership. The fellowship was est...
David Rockefeller Award for Extraordinary Service honors founding chairs of university’s Women & Science initiative
by AMELIA KAHANEY Among the accolades for scholar-scientists, this year’s Convocation also honored four women with a different but no less significant role in the advancement of research— Lydia A. Forbes, Isabel P. Furlaud, Nancy M.Kissinger, and Sydney Roberts Shuman, the founding chairs of Ro...
Gaby Maimon and Vanessa Ruta honored with teaching awards
For Rockefeller graduate students there is labwork, and there is coursework. This year, the university recognizes two teachers who have devoted substantial time, energy, and creativity to designing and leading one of the most challenging and innovative courses within the university’s graduate cur...
Lindsay Bellani
Lindsay Bellani Presented by Leslie B. Vosshall B.S., The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill Why Mosquitoes Bite Some People More than Others: Metabolic Correlates of Human Attraction in Aedes aegypti         Why do mosquitoes bite some people more than others? This question has puzzle...
Jabez Bok
Jabez Bok Presented by Sidney Strickland on behalf of Robert G. Roeder B.S., University of Wisconsin, Madison Mechanism of Action of ING4 as a Transcriptional Coactivator of p53         Jabez Bok hails from Singapore, and after earning his undergraduate degree at the University of Wisconsin, ...
Christine E. Cho
Christine E. Cho Presented by Leslie B. Vosshall on behalf of Cori Bargmann Sc.B., Brown University Mechanisms of Olfactory Plasticity in Caenorhabditis elegans         Although many religions warn us against fortune tellers, it’s the brain’s job to predict the future. What does a new sti...
Eliot Dow
Eliot Dow Presented by A. James Hudspeth B.S., Ohio State University Synapse Formation in the Zebrafish Lateral Line         Although our brains do not always function well, it is actually implausible that they should function at all. A human brain contains something like a hundred billion ne...
Akinori F. Ebihara
Akinori F. Ebihara Presented by Winrich Freiwald on behalf of himself and Marcelo O. Magnasco B.S., The University of Tokyo Normalization Among Heterogeneous Population Confers Stimulus Discriminability on the Macaque Face Patch Neurons         As I introduce Akinori Ebihara to you, I find ...
Clark Fisher
Clark Fisher Presented by Winrich Freiwald A.B., Princeton University Effect of Temporal and Spatial Context within the Macaque Face-Processing System         Social life relies on faces. A day like today—when lots of people come together all wearing pretty much the same outfit—would be u...
Ariel Halper-Stromberg
Ariel Halper-Stromberg Presented by Michel C. Nussenzweig B.S., University of Maryland, College Park Therapeutic Uses of Broadly Neutralizing Anti-HIV-1 Antibodies in Humanized Mice         Ari Halper-Stromberg grew up in Maryland and went to college at the University of Maryland, College Par...
Jeffrey G. Johnson
Jeffrey G. Johnson Presented by Sidney Strickland on behalf of Tom Muir B.A., Knox College Studies on the Maturation of Secreted Quorum Sensing Peptides That Regulate S. aureus Virulence         Jeffrey Johnson received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Knox College in Illinois befo...
Shaheen Kabir
Shaheen Kabir Presented by Titia de Lange B.S., Haverford College Investigating Mechanisms of Telomere End-protection         Despite being young, Shaheen Kabir’s life has already involved five continents. Born to Pakistani parents, Shaheen grew up in beautiful Tanzania. She went to Austral...
Anna Katherine Kruyer
Anna Katherine Kruyer Presented by Erin Norris on behalf of herself and Sidney Strickland B.A., Fordham College at Lincoln Center The Effect of Chronic Hypertension on Neuropathology in the TgSwDI Mouse Model of Alzheimer’s Disease         When Anna Kruyer moved to New York City from a smal...
Johannes Larsch
Johannes Larsch Presented by Leslie B. Vosshall on behalf of Cori Bargmann M.Sc., University of Konstanz A Mechanism for Spatial Orientation Based on Sensory Adaptation in Caenorhabditis elegans         In his work on the unity of opposites, hodos ano kato, the pre-Socratic philosopher Herac...
Hyeseung Lee
Hyeseung Lee Presented by Sohail Tavazoie B.S., Ewha Womans University Identification of Tmem2 as a Sox4 Transcriptional Target Involved in Breast Cancer Metastasis         Hyeseung studied chemistry and life sciences in South Korea. In my lab, she studied how a gene called SOX4 endows cance...
Joseph M. Luna
Joseph M. Luna Presented by Robert B. Darnell on behalf of himself and Charles M. Rice B.S., Yale University A Genomic Portrait of Hepatitis C Virus and MicroRNA-122         “The crowded hall was brimming with excitement as a room full of scientists took their seats.” These prescient word...
Jennifer Zuckerman Malin
Jennifer Zuckerman Malin Presented by Shai Shaham B.A., University of Pennsylvania Components of the Ubiquitin Proteasome System are Required for the Nonapoptotic Death of the Caenorhabditis elegans Linker Cell         It is a distinct pleasure for me to be here today to participate in Jenni...
Alexander R. Nectow
Alexander R. Nectow Presented by Jeffrey M. Friedman B.S.E.S., M.S., Tufts University Functional Dissection of Brainstem Circuitry         Some of you may be familiar with the phrase “all heat and no light.” This describes a person who generates lots of energy but who illuminates very lit...
Zeeshan Ozair
Zeeshan Ozair Presented by Ali H. Brivanlou B.S., M.B., The Aga Khan University Medical College A Reductionist Approach to Modeling Human Corticogenesis         Where does the mind come from? What is the origin of our brain? Zeeshan Ozair came to me in 2009 via Abu-Dhabi and Pakistan, with a ...
Pablo Polosecki
Pablo Polosecki Presented by Winrich Freiwald Licenciado, University of Buenos Aires Specialized Signals for Spatial Attention in the Ventral and Dorsal Visual Streams         Pablo Polosecki once founded a club on campus with the purpose of discussing the foundations of science and philosoph...
Kavita Rangan
Kavita Rangan Presented by Howard C. Hang B.S., University of California, Berkeley Characterization of Bacterial Metabolites Involved in Host Pathogen Resistance         It has been a pleasure to have Kavita Rangan do her graduate thesis studies in my laboratory. Kavita is a remarkable indivi...
Jason Barzel Ross
Jason Barzel Ross Presented by Sohail Tavazoie B.S., Stanford University Molecular Determinants of Tumor Re-initiation in Breast Cancer         Jason received his undergraduate training in biology at Stanford University, where he was actively involved in stem cell research. Upon joining my la...
Joshua Salvi
Joshua Salvi Presented by A. James Hudspeth B.S., The Pennsylvania State University Mechanical Control of Sensory Hair-bundle Function         Human hearing is truly remarkable: we can detect frequencies a thousandfold as great as those measured by our other senses; we can capture sounds down...
Johannes F. Scheid
Johannes F. Scheid Presented by Michel C. Nussenzweig Member of the graduating class of 2014 Diploma, University of Arts, Berlin M.D., Humboldt University – Charite, Berlin The Antibody Response against HIV       This is the second Rockefeller graduation for Johannes Scheid, the first being f...
Roman Subbotin
Roman Subbotin Presented by Brian T. Chait B.S., M.S., Taras Shevchenko Kiev State University M.S., University of Minnesota Chemical Stabilization—A Path Towards Deciphering Protein-Protein Interactions in the Cellular Milieu     Roman Subbotin was born in Stryi in the Soviet Ukraine. He studi...
He Tian
He Tian Presented by Thomas P. Sakmar B.S., Peking University Development of Novel Chemical Biology Tools for Probing  Structure-Function Relationships in G Protein Coupled Receptors     It is a challenge to describe chemistry in narrative form. Chemistry is a way of thinking. Chemistry is intel...
Yifan Xu
Yifan Xu Presented by Jeremy Dittman on behalf of Cori Bargmann B.S., Duke University Neural Circuit Dependence of Acute and Subacute Nociception in Caenorhabditis elegans     Most grad students experience some type of pain during their thesis work. For Yifan’s thesis, she decided to work on p...
John Z. Xue
John Z. Xue Presented by Hironori Funabiki B.A., University of Cambridge Xenopus Dppa2 is a Direct Inhibitor of Microtubule Polymerization Required for Nuclear Assembly         From John Xue’s eloquent British accent, it may be hard to imagine his origin. John was born and raised in Jingbia...
Daria A. Zamolodchikov
Daria A. Zamolodchikov Presented by Sidney Strickland A.B., Princeton University A New Role for b-Amyloid in Alzheimer’s Disease: Initiation of Thrombotic and Inflammatory Processes via Coagulation Factor XII and Fibrinogen         Let’s consider American Pharoah. It takes intelligence, s...
Coming soon, to The David Rockefeller Graduate Program
As the graduating class of 2015 moves on to the next stages of life and career, the Rockefeller community welcomes the incoming group of graduate fellows. There were 689 applications received this year, and after careful consideration by the admissions committee, 81 applicants were offered admiss...
New faculty member probes actions of molecular machines in gene expression
Tiny machines, which convert chemical energy into mechanical work, drive nearly all aspects of life within a cell. Shixin Liu, a biophysicist and Rockefeller’s newest tenure-track faculty member, investigates how these individual motors interact, and, in many cases, cooperate with one another to ...
Expert in cryo-electron microscopy to join Rockefeller faculty
Thomas Walz, a structural biologist who uses cutting-edge electron microscopy techniques to better understand processes involving biological membranes, will join Rockefeller’s faculty as a tenured professor on September 1. As head of the Laboratory of Molecular Electron Microscopy, Walz will take...
Rockefeller sustainability initiatives are honored by the Association of Energy Engineers
The Rockefeller University’s multi-year initiative to reduce energy usage and carbon emissions will be honored this week with an award from the Association of Energy Engineers. The local award, for institutional energy management of the year, recognizes the consistent achievements of an entire te...
Twenty-nine students receive doctorates at Rockefeller’s 57th Convocation
At its convocation ceremony on Thursday, June 11, Rockefeller University presented doctoral degrees to 29 students. In a tradition dating back to the university’s first commencement ceremony in 1959, doctoral candidates received their degrees from their mentors. In addition, Nicole Le Douarin,...
The Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation provides landmark gift of $100 Million to The Rockefeller University
New research center will help attract the best talent to make transformative discoveries Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of The Rockefeller University, today announced a leadership gift of $100 million from The Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis Foundation to help create a new laboratory building t...
Announcements
Kids welcome. In celebration of national Take Your Child to Work Day, Human Resources will host activities for 8- to 12-year-olds from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on April 23. Children must be registered by April 17 and must be accompanied by an adult to attend. Space is limited. For more information, call ...
Cardiologist Paul Cohen, expert in obesity and related diseases, named to faculty
More than one in three U.S. adults is obese, a condition that puts them at risk for an alarming array of health problems, from diabetes and heart disease to cancer. But while obesity brings devastating consequences for many, some escape. For a select few, obesity causes little more than sore join...
Child and Family Center to expand by five rooms
by ZACH VEILLEUX The Rockefeller University Child and Family Center, long one of the university’s most coveted perks for parents and a model for work-site child care facilities nationwide, will expand by 40 percent this year, with five new classrooms to be constructed on the second floor of the G...
New career director to help students and postdocs navigate options
by WYNNE PARRY Andrea Morris’s career in biology has had a few curves. After earning a Ph.D. in molecular biology and doing a postdoc, she took a tenure-track faculty job, teaching and running a lab at a small liberal arts college. But she ultimately gave up tenure, and the bench, to work in high...
Two new Trustees are elected to Board
by WYNNE PARRY The university’s Board of Trustees elected two new members in October 2014: Weslie Janeway, a philanthropist with a long-standing interest in genetics, and Michael J. Price, an investment advisor specializing in the telecom and technology industries. With their elections, the unive...
Rockefeller mathematician Peter Sellers dies at 84
by STEPHEN ALTSCHUL Peter H. Sellers, among the earliest researchers on DNA and protein sequence comparison, died of cancer on November 15, 2014, at the age of 84. An obituary was published in The Philadelphia Inquirer on November 25. Here, I offer a brief, personal perspective. I first met Pete...
Richard Krause, former lab head and advocate for infectious disease research, dies
by WYNNE PARRY Richard M. Krause, a former Rockefeller University faculty member who later became director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and presciently warned against complacency toward infectious disease, has died at the age of 90. A fascination with the strep...
‘Talking Science’ lecture moves to January
The university’s annual holiday lecture for high school students, a tradition dating back to 1960, received a makeover this year. In addition to a new name, “Talking Science,” which debuted in 2013, the lecture was moved to the second Saturday of January, and expanded to include a lunchtime pr...
Milestones
Awarded: Mary Ellen Conley, the AAI-Steinman Award from the American Association of Immunologists. The award, named for the late Ralph M. Steinman, head of Rockefeller’s Laboratory of Cellular Physiology and Immunology, recognizes an individual who has made significant contributions to the unders...
Cancer biologist and physician Sohail Tavazoie is promoted to associate professor
Sohail Tavazoie, head of the Elizabeth and Vincent Meyer Laboratory of Systems Cancer Biology, has been promoted to associate professor, effective January 1. Tavazoie, who joined Rockefeller in 2009, works to understand how cancer cells become able to escape a tumor and invade other organs, a pro...
Physician scientist, interested in obesity-related disease, to join faculty
More than one in three U.S. adults is obese, a condition that puts them at risk for an alarming array of health problems, from diabetes and heart disease to cancer. But while obesity brings devastating consequences for many, some escape. For a select few, obesity causes little more than sore join...
$150 million from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and David Rockefeller launches major campus extension
Marc Tessier-Lavigne, president of The Rockefeller University, today announced two leadership pledges of $75 million each from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and David Rockefeller to launch a major extension of the University’s campus on the East River. Dr. Tessier-Lavigne said, “These pledg...
Announcements
Tri-I TDI makes modeling software available. The Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, Inc. (Tri-I TDI) has signed an agreement to provide access to Schrödinger’s materials science, biologics and small‑molecule drug discovery suites to researchers within Tri-I TDI’s member insti...
Geneticist Joe Gleeson joins faculty as professor
by WYNNE PARRY Joseph Gleeson, a neurogeneticist who uses genetic sequencing to identify the causes of pediatric brain disease across its spectrum, including epilepsy, autism, intellectual disability and structural disorders, has joined Rockefeller as a professor and established the Laboratory of...
Tenure awarded to Hiro Funabiki
by WYNNE PARRY Hironori Funabiki, head of the Laboratory of Chromosome and Cell Biology, was promoted to professor and granted tenure by the university’s Board of Trustees at its June meeting. Dr. Funabiki studies mitosis, the primary type of cell division that underlies all growth, maintenance a...
New cryo-EM suite expands Rockefeller’s capabilities in structural biology
by ZACH VEILLEUX Structural biology, in which scientists examine the shapes of specific proteins and protein complexes at a molecular scale, has driven some of biology’s most profound discoveries in the past decade, including insights into neurological signaling, pathogenic processes and DNA tran...
Playing doctors: Tri-Institutional Music and Medicine Program features physicians and scientists who also perform music
by LESLIE CHURCH Maybe it’s the fact that they both involve a good amount of discipline, or maybe it’s that each requires a certain flair for creative thought. Whatever the reason, many people find themselves drawn to both music and science, and are often faced with the difficult decision of cho...
Science communicator named new head of Public Affairs
by WYNNE PARRY An endless stream of compelling discoveries emerges regularly from Rockefeller’s research community and it is the job of the Office of Communications and Public Affairs to make sure those findings are accessible internally and externally. The new executive director of the office, F...
Antique vacuum pump finds new home in Pennsylvania
Not as iconic as the breakthrough discoveries and famous names, but a vital part of Rockefeller’s history nonetheless — a pump that supplied vacuum pressure to Rockefeller labs for over half a century — is having its moment in the spotlight. One of the last of its kind in Manhattan, the 1952 p...
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