McClintock Lectures

Women are far less likely to be invited to speak on their research by academic institutes and universities than men; CSHL is no exception. These opportunities are critical for garnering recognition in the scientific community, for establishing collaborations, and for career advancement more generally.

In order to address the lack of women speaker invitations being extended by our own institution, WiSE successfully petitioned the CSHL administration to establish the Barbara McClintock lecture series in 2015. This initiative secures two slots each year (out of ~15 total for CSHL) for WiSE to co-host lectures from rising women stars in academia.

The McClintock Lecture Series honors the legacy of CSHL scientist and Nobel Laureate, Barbara McClintock. McClintock was a brilliant and accomplished scientist who revolutionized the study of genetics and made the groundbreaking discovery of “jumping genes” – now known as transposons. She remains the only woman to have ever received an unshared Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Her strength, perseverance, and endless curiosity allowed her to succeed in science at a time when very few women were welcome in the field worldwide.

McClintock Lectures 2023

On January 26, 2023 WiSE invited Dr. Shruti Naik to give a Seminar entitled “Immune-mediated mechanisms of adaptive and maladaptive tissue responses” as part of the CSHL Labwide Seminar Series and WiSE McClintock Lectures Series. Dr. Naik was nominated as a McClintock Lecturer not only to showcase the incredible work of her lab, which spans the fields of immunology, host-microbe interactions, and epithelial cell biology, but also for her commitment to advancing the careers of underrepresented and marginalized groups in STEM. During her visit, Dr. Naik also attended breakfast and lunch with lab trainees.  
 
Dr. Naik received her Bachelor’s degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Maryland, College Park. After graduating, she worked as research assistant at the Naval Medical Research Center studying traumatic injury and autoimmune onset. She then received her Ph.D. in Immunology under the mentorship of Dr. Yasmine Belkaid and in collaboration with Dr. Julie Segre through UPenn and the NIH. During her PhD, Dr. Naik discovered how commensals can educate the immune system to protect against pathogens, which has now opened the door for microbiota-based therapies in skin. Dr. Naik then joined the lab of Dr. Elaine Fuchs at Rockefeller as a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow for her postdoctoral studies. There she discovered that epithelial stem cells harbor memory of inflammation which consequently can boost their regenerative abilities. Dr. Naik is currently an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Pathology, Dept. of Medicine, and Ronald O. Perelman Department of Dermatology at NYU.
 

Past McClintock Lectures:

May 3, 2022

Akiko Iwasaki

Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., is currently the Sterling Professor of Immunobiology; Professor of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology; of Epidemiology; and of Dermatology; and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator at Yale University. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (Canada), and completed her postdoctoral training from the National Institutes of Health (USA)….

February 3, 2022

Sarah Tishkoff

Sarah Tishkoff is the David and Lyn Silfen University Professor in Genetics and Biology at the University of Pennsylvania, holding appointments in the School of Medicine and the School of Arts and Sciences. She is also Director of the Penn Center for Global Genomics and Health Equity. Dr. Tishkoff studies genomic and phenotypic variation…

March 18, 2021

Joan Brugge

Louise Foote Pfeiffer Professor of Cell Biology and the Director of the Ludwig Center at Harvard Medical School Dr. Joan Brugge, Ph.D. is currently Director of the Harvard Ludwig Cancer Center and Professor of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. She received her B.S. degree from Northwestern University, Ph.D. degree from the Baylor College…

March 4, 2021

Miriam Merad

Professor in Cancer Immunology and Director of the Precision Immunology Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai School Dr. Miriam Merad, M.D., Ph.D., is the Mount Sinai Endowed professor in Cancer Immunology and the Director of the Precision Immunology Institute at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. Dr. Merad also…

December 5, 2019

Angelika Amon

Kathleen and Curtis Marble Professor of CancerResearch at MIT; Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Austrian-American cell biologist Angelika Amon received a 2019 Breakthrough Award in Life Sciences (the so-called “Oscars” of the science world with the added bonus of $3 million) for her work on chromosomal segregation. DNA in our cells is coiled up…

February 28, 2019

Ana C. Anderson

Photo Credit: Ana C. Anderson Lab, Associate Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Scientist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and core faculty member of the Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases. On February 28, 2019, we had the honor of hosting Dr. Ana…

December 13, 2018

Elaine Fuchs

Photo Credit : HHMI, Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at the Rockefeller University December 13, 2018, we had the honor of hosting cell biologist Elaine Fuchs as a McClintock lecturer. Fuchs was born and raised in Illinois and earned a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Illinois (where,…

February 22, 2018

Caroline Dean

Professor and Project Leader at John Innes Centre, Norwich, UK Cellular and developmental biologist Caroline Dean studies the genetic and epigenetic mechanisms by which external temperature regulates the timing of plant reproduction, increasingly relevant with global climate change affecting crop production. Her work has led to important insights into chromatin regulation and evolutionary adaptation…

January 11, 2018

Kristi S. Anseth

Photos Credit: Jue X. Wang, Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering at University of Colorado, Boulder January 11, 2018 On January 11, we hosted biochemical engineer Dr. Kristi S. Anseth as our first McClintock lecturer of 2018. In her position as Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Associate Faculty Director of…

March 17, 2017

Carol Greider

Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Dr. Greider’s lab is focused on understanding telomerase and cellular and organismal consequences of telomere dysfunction. To examine telomere function, her lab uses biochemistry assays, yeast, and mice. Carol discovered the enzyme telomerase in 1984, and was awarded  the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine, along…

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