Sally Kornbluth

Last updated

Sally Kornbluth
Sally Kornbluth.jpg
Kornbluth in 2023
18th President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Incumbent
Assumed office
January 1, 2023
Scientific career
FieldsCellular biology
Institutions Duke University
Duke Kunshan University
Thesis Modulation of cellular SRC family tyrosine kinases: phosphorylation state and polyomavirus middle T antigen binding  (1989)
Doctoral advisor Hidesaburo Hanafusa
Other academic advisorsJohn Newport
Doctoral students Daniel Colón-Ramos

Sally Ann Kornbluth (born 1960) is an American cell biologist and academic administrator. She began serving as the 18th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in January 2023. [1]

Contents

Early life and education

Kornbluth was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and grew up in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. [2] She is Jewish. [2] Her father George was an accountant [2] and her mother, Marisa Galvany, was an opera singer. [3]

Kornbluth received a Bachelor of Arts with a major in political science from Williams College in 1982 and a Bachelor of Science with a major in genetics from the University of Cambridge, in 1984. She received a Doctor of Philosophy in molecular oncology from the Rockefeller University in 1989. [4]

While at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, she was a Herchel Smith Scholar. She worked at the laboratory of Hidesaburo Hanafusa when at Rockefeller University, [5] and performed postdoctoral training with John Newport at the University of California, San Diego. [6] [7]

Career

Duke University

Kornbluth joined the faculty at Duke University in 1994. Her research focuses on cell growth and programmed cell death and how cancer cells evade apoptosis. [8] [9] She is interested in the role of programmed cell death in regulating the length of female fertility in vertebrates, in a mechanism regulated by caspase-2. [7] [10] [11]

At Duke she received a Research Mentoring award in 2012 and the Distinguished Faculty Award from the Duke Medical Alumni Association in 2013. She was elected to the Institute of Medicine in 2013. [12]

In 2014 Kornbluth became Provost at Duke, the first woman to serve in this role. [6] [13] As Provost, she oversaw a leadership transition in which female Deans became a majority at Duke. [14] She is an advocate of liberal arts education and has stated that her own experience in a liberal arts school at Williams College led her to a career in the sciences. [15] She is also an advocate for on-line learning as a driver of pedagogic innovation. [16]

She also served as Chair of the Board of Trustees at Duke Kunshan University, [17] overseeing the appointment of Al Bloom as the university's Executive Vice Chancellor in 2020, [18] and the launch of the WHU-Duke Research Institute in 2014. [19]

Kornbluth served as provost from 2014 to 2022 and vice dean for basic sciences at Duke University School of Medicine from 2006 to 2014. [12] [4]

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In 2022, Kornbluth was selected as the 18th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, succeeding L. Rafael Reif in this role in 2023. [20] [1] At her inauguration she outlined objectives for the institute including accelerating work on climate change and strengthening links between engineering and life sciences. [21]

Following the 2023 Hamas-led attack on Israel, [22] Kornbluth and the presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University were called to testify before a December 2023 congressional hearing about antisemitism on their campuses. [23] When asked by U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) whether calls for "genocide of Jews" was harassment under university policies, she responded, "If targeted at individuals, not making public statements." [24] [25] Kornbluth's statement has been described by Stefanik and others as antisemitic, leading to calls by some for Kornbluth's resignation. [26]

Honors

Personal life

Kornbluth is married to Daniel Lew, a professor of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology at the Duke University School of Medicine. They have two children. Kornbluth is Jewish. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duke University</span> Private university in Durham, North Carolina, U.S.

Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James Buchanan Duke established The Duke Endowment and the institution changed its name to honor his deceased father, Washington Duke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Lindquist</span> American geneticist

Susan Lee Lindquist, ForMemRS was an American professor of biology at MIT specializing in molecular biology, particularly the protein folding problem within a family of molecules known as heat-shock proteins, and prions. Lindquist was a member and former director of the Whitehead Institute and was awarded the National Medal of Science in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Baltimore</span> American biologist (born 1938)

David Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and 1975 Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He is a professor of biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he served as president from 1997 to 2006. He founded the Whitehead Institute and directed it from 1982 to 1990. In 2008, he served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley M. Tilghman</span> Canadian molecular biologist and president emerita of Princeton University

Shirley Marie Tilghman, is a Canadian scholar in molecular biology and an academic administrator. She is now a professor of molecular biology and public policy and president emerita of Princeton University. In 2002, Discover magazine recognized her as one of the 50 most important women in science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Whitehead Institute</span> Non-profit biomedical research institute

Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research is a non-profit research institute located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States that is dedicated to improving human health through basic biomedical research. It was founded as a fiscally independent entity from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where its 19 members all hold faculty appointments in the MIT Department of Biology or the MIT Department of Bioengineering. As of 2023, Ruth Lehmann is its director; she succeeded David C. Page.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rockefeller University</span> Biomedical research university in New York City, US

The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classified as a "Special Focus – Research Institution". Rockefeller is the oldest biomedical research institute in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Susan Hockfield</span> American neuroscientist

Susan Hockfield is an American neuroscientist who served as the 16th president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2004 to 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Blackburn</span> Australian-born American biological researcher

Elizabeth Helen Blackburn is an Australian-American Nobel laureate who is the former president of the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. In 1984, Blackburn co-discovered telomerase, the enzyme that replenishes the telomere, with Carol W. Greider. For this work, she was awarded the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, sharing it with Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, becoming the first Australian woman Nobel laureate.

At Duke University, the title of James B. Duke Professor is given to a small number of the faculty with extraordinary records of achievement. At some universities, titles like "distinguished professor", "institute professor", or "regents professor" are counterparts of this title. Two Nobel laureates currently serve as James B. Duke Professors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Fuchs</span> American cell biologist

Elaine V. Fuchs is an American cell biologist known for her work on the biology and molecular mechanisms of mammalian skin and skin diseases, who helped lead the modernization of dermatology. Fuchs pioneered reverse genetics approaches, which assess protein function first and then assess its role in development and disease. In particular, Fuchs researches skin stem cells and their production of hair and skin. She is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development at The Rockefeller University.

Suzanne Cory is an Australian molecular biologist. She has worked on the genetics of the immune system and cancer and has lobbied her country to invest in science. She is married to fellow scientist Jerry Adams, also a WEHI scientist, whom she met while studying for her PhD at the University of Cambridge, England.

Brigid L. M. Hogan FRS is a British developmental biologist noted for her contributions to mammalian development, stem cell research and transgenic technology and techniques. She is currently a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Duke University, Born in the UK, she became an American citizen in 2000.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Liz Magill</span> American legal scholar (born 1965)

Mary Elizabeth Magill is an American legal scholar and academic administrator. She served as the 9th president of the University of Pennsylvania from 2022 to 2023, executive vice president and provost of the University of Virginia from 2019 to 2022, and dean of Stanford Law School from 2012 to 2019.

Arnold Jay Levine, is an American molecular biologist. He was awarded the 1998 Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize for Biology or Biochemistry and was the first recipient of the Albany Medical Center Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research in 2001 for his discovery of the tumor suppressor protein p53.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aviv Regev</span> Bioinformatician

Aviv Regev is a computational biologist and systems biologist and Executive Vice President and Head of Genentech Research and Early Development in Genentech/Roche. She is a core member at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and professor at the Department of Biology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Regev is a pioneer of single cell genomics and of computational and systems biology of gene regulatory circuits. She founded and leads the Human Cell Atlas project, together with Sarah Teichmann.

Richard Olding Hynes is a British biologist, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and the Daniel K. Ludwig Professor for Cancer Research at the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). His research focuses on cell adhesion and the interactions between cells and the extracellular matrix, with a particular interest in understanding molecular mechanisms of cancer metastasis. He is well known as a co-discoverer of fibronectin molecules, a discovery that has been listed by Thomson Scientific ScienceWatch as a Nobel Prize candidate.

Marie Celeste Simon is the Arthur H. Rubenstein Professor of cell and developmental biology, the scientific director of the Abramson Family Cancer Research Institute, and the associate director of the Abramson Cancer Center Core Facilities, at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Her research focuses on cancer cell metabolism, angiogenesis, and immunology.

Helen Margaret Piwnica-Worms is an American cell-cycle researcher. Since 2013, she has served as vice provost of science at the MD Anderson Cancer Center and professor in MD Anderson's Department of Cancer Biology.

Peter Lange is an American academic and the former Provost of Duke University, serving three terms from 1999 to 2014. As Provost, Lange oversaw the creation of Duke Kunshan University in China, and two five-year strategic plans. His tenure included building interdisciplinary institutes and new library and arts facilities. Lange was the university's longest-serving provost, and also served as a professor of political science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">2023 United States Congress hearing on antisemitism</span> United States Congressional hearing

On December 5, 2023, the United States House Committee on Education & the Workforce held a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses. The committee called a few university leaders to testify, including the presidents of Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

References

  1. 1 2 Hartocollis, Anemona (October 20, 2022). "M.I.T. Names a Duke Provost as Its New President". The New York Times. Retrieved October 23, 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Bradt, Steve (October 27, 2022). "Sally Kornbluth is named MIT's 18th president". Jewish Journal. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  3. ↑ Smith, Robin (October 31, 2014). "A scientist's unlikely path, with Duke Provost Sally Kornbluth". Duke Research Blog. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  4. 1 2 "Sally Kornbluth". MIT Department of Biology. Retrieved March 26, 2023.
  5. ↑ Kornbluth, Sally Ann (1989). Modulation of cellular src family tyrosine kinases: Phosphorylation state and polyomavirus middle T antigen binding (Ph.D. thesis). The Rockefeller University. OCLC   38075792. ProQuest   303824168.
  6. 1 2 "Sally Kornbluth Named Duke University Provost" (Press release). Duke University. March 3, 2014. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  7. 1 2 Sedwick, Caitlin (July 7, 2014). "Sally Kornbluth: Nature's incredible contraptions". The Journal of Cell Biology. 206 (1): 4–5. doi:10.1083/jcb.2061pi. ISSN   0021-9525. PMC   4085709 . PMID   25002675.
  8. ↑ "Sally Kornbluth, Ph.D." Duke University School of Medicine - Department of Pharmacology and Cancer Biology. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  9. ↑ Matsuura, K.; Huang, N.-J.; Cocce, K.; Zhang, L.; Kornbluth, S. (2017). "Downregulation of the proapoptotic protein MOAP-1 by the UBR5 ubiquitin ligase and its role in ovarian cancer resistance to cisplatin". Oncogene. 36 (12): 1698–1706. doi:10.1038/onc.2016.336. ISSN   1476-5594. PMC   5447866 . PMID   27721409.
  10. ↑ Nutt, Leta K.; Margolis, Seth S.; Jensen, Mette; Herman, Catherine E.; Dunphy, William G.; Rathmell, Jeffrey C.; Kornbluth, Sally (October 7, 2005). "Metabolic regulation of oocyte cell death through the CaMKII-mediated phosphorylation of caspase-2". Cell. 123 (1): 89–103. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2005.07.032. ISSN   0092-8674. PMC   2788768 . PMID   16213215.
  11. ↑ "The Collaborator". MIT News.
  12. 1 2 "Sally Kornbluth, vice dean for basic science at Duke, named to Institute of Medicine" (Press release). Duke Medicine. October 21, 2013. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  13. ↑ Muoio, Danielle (July 1, 2014). "Meet Sally Kornbluth: the first female provost". The Chronicle (Duke University). Archived from the original on March 19, 2015. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  14. ↑ WRAL (July 26, 2018). "'Two remaining men': Female leaders become majority at Duke schools". WRAL.com. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  15. ↑ Yang, Robert (March 12, 2014). "Duke appoints Kornbluth as provost". The Williams Record. Retrieved March 25, 2015.
  16. ↑ Anders, George. "Duke's Sally Kornbluth Gives Online Learning Top Marks". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved May 23, 2019.
  17. ↑ "Board of Trustees | Duke Kunshan University". dukekunshan.edu.cn. Archived from the original on January 14, 2021. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  18. ↑ "Global education leader Al Bloom to be executive vice chancellor | Duke Kunshan University". dukekunshan.edu.cn. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  19. ↑ "Overview | Duke Kunshan University". dukekunshan.edu.cn. Retrieved January 12, 2021.
  20. ↑ Bradt, Steve (October 20, 2022). "Sally Kornbluth is named as MIT's 18th president" . Retrieved October 20, 2022.
  21. ↑ "The collaborator". MIT Technology Review. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
  22. ↑ Belkin, Douglas; Ellis, Lindsay (October 11, 2023). "Blaming Israel for Hamas Attacks Sparks Backlash Across U.S., Exposing Deep Rifts". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved October 13, 2023.
  23. ↑ Haslett, Cheyenne; Hensley, Sarah Beth (December 5, 2023). "Presidents of universities grilled on efforts to counter antisemitism on campus". ABC News . Retrieved December 7, 2023.
  24. ↑ Damiano, Mike; Burns, Hilary (December 6, 2023). "University presidents' responses to genocide question at congressional hearing draw furor". The Boston Globe. Retrieved December 8, 2023.
  25. ↑ Borter, Gabriella (December 6, 2023). "US House Republicans grill university presidents over campus antisemitism". Reuters. Retrieved December 10, 2023.
  26. ↑ "University presidents face investigation, walk back responses after heated hearing on antisemitism". USA TODAY. Retrieved January 4, 2024.
Academic offices
Preceded by President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2023–present		Incumbent
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.