Institute of Medicine Elects 16 Women Academics as Members

The Institute of Medicine, established in 1970, is part of the National Academy of Sciences. Election to the IOM is considered one of the highest honors for members of the medical and health fields.

This year 70 new members were elected to the Institute of Medicine. Seventeen of the new members are women and 16 have current higher education affiliations.

(L to R) Front row: Jacqueline K. Barton, Shelly L. Berger, Nancy M. Bonini, Lynda Chin, PonJola Coney, Eileen Crimmins, Lisa DeAngelis, and Sherin U. Devaskar. Second row: Jennifer R. Grandis, Lydia E. Kavraki, Paula M. Lantz, Marina Picciotto, Jennifer M. Puck, Marilyn J. Rantz, Sara Rosenbaum, and Diane J. Wilkie.

Jacqueline K. Barton is the Hanisch Memorial Professor of Chemistry and chair of the division of chemistry and chemical engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. She has been a member of the CalTech faculty since 1989 and previously taught at Columbia University and Hunter College in New York City.

Dr. Barton is a summa cum laude graduate of Barnard College and holds a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Columbia University.

Shelly L. Berger is the Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and the Daniel S. Och Professor of biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania. She previously held an endowed chair at the Wistar Institute, an independent nonprofit biomedical research institution in Philadelphia.

Dr. Berger holds a Ph.D. in cell and molecular biology from University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. She conducted postdoctoral research at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nancy M. Bonini is the Florence R.C. Murray Professor of Biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on the genetics of human brain disease.

Dr. Bonini is a graduate of Princeton University, where she majored in biology. She holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lynda Chin is the M.G. and Lillie A. Johnson Chair for Cancer Treatment and Research and scientific director of the Institute for Applied Cancer Research at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Professor Chin came to Texas in 2011 after serving for 12 years as a professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School and as a member of the department of medical oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

Dr. Chin earned her medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in The Bronx, New York. She is the founder of  AVEO Pharmaceuticals and Metamark Genetics.

PonJola Coney is a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and senior associate dean for faculty affairs at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine in Richmond. She is the former dean of medicine and senior vice president for health affairs at Meharry Medical College in Nashville. Previously, she was a professor and chair of the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. She has also held faculty positions at the University of Oklahoma, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Arizona.

Dr. Coney is a graduate of Xavier University in New Orleans. She earned her medical degree at the University of Mississippi and completed her residency at the University of North Carolina.

Eileen Crimmins is the AARP Professor of Gerontology at the University of Southern California and the director of the USC/UCLA Center on Biodemography and Population Health. Dr. Crimmins has been on the faculty at USC since 1982. She is the co-author of The Fertility Revolution: A Supply-Demand Analysis (University of Chicago Press, 1985).

Dr. Crimmins is a graduate of Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia and holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in demography from the University of Pennsylvania.

Lisa DeAngelis is professor of neurology at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and professor of neurology at the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Her research is focused on brain tumors and the neurologic complications of cancer.

Dr. DeAngelis is a graduate of Wellesley College and received her medical training at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.

Sherin U. Devaskar holds the Mattel Executive Endowed Chair in pediatrics and is assistant vice chancellor of children’s health at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the long-term outcome of premature and growth-restricted babies, the nutrition they receive while in the womb and soon after birth, and the propensity of these babies to develop adult-onset conditions, including obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr. Devaskar earned her degree at the Madras Medical College of the University of Madras in India.

Jennifer R. Grandis holds the UPMC Endowed Chair in Head and Neck Cancer Surgical Research and is the Distinguished Professor of Otolaryngology and Pharmacology at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Dr. Grandis is a graduate of Swarthmore College in suburban Philadelphia. She earned her medical degree at the University of Pittsburgh.

Lydia E. Kavraki is the Noah Harding Professor of Computer Science and professor of bioengineering at Rice University in Houston. She is also a professor in structural and computational biology and molecular biophysics at the Baylor College of Medicine. She is one of the authors of Principles of Robot Motion: Theory, Algorithms, and Implementations (Bradford Books, 2005).

Professor Kavraki received her bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of Crete. She holds a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University.

Paula M. Lantz is professor and chair of the department of health policy at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services in Washington, D.C.

Professor Lantz is a graduate of St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. She holds a master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a second master’s degree in epidemiology and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin.

Marina Picciotto is the Charles B.G. Murphy Professor of Psychiatry and professor of neurobiology and pharmacology at the Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Picciotto joined the Yale faculty in 1995 after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris.

A graduate of Stanford University, Professor Picciotto earned a Ph.D. in molecular neurobiology from Rockefeller University in New York City.

Jennifer M. Puck is a professor of immunology and pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco. She has been on the faculty at UCSF since 2006. Previously, she was director of the Immunologic Disease Section of the National Human Genome Research Institute of the National Institutes of Health. She has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the Baylor College of Medicine.

Professor Puck holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biochemistry from Harvard University and a master’s degree and a medical degree from Harvard Medical School.

Marilyn J. Rantz is the Curators’ Professor for University Hospitals and holds the Helen E. Nahm Chair at the Sinclair School of Nursing at the University of Missouri at Columbia. Her interests include the quality of health service at long-term care facilities.

Dr. Rantz is a graduate of Mercy Junior College in St. Louis, Missouri, and the University of Illinois at Chicago. She holds master’s degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and Marquette University and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Sara Rosenbaum is the Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy at the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University. She is also a professor at the university’s law school. She has been on the university’s faculty since 1992. She is the co-author of Law and the American Health Care System (Foundation Press, 1997).

Professor Rosenbaum is a graduate of Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, and the Boston University School of Law.

Diane J. Wilkie holds the Harriet H. Werley Endowed Chair for Nursing Research and is the director of the Center for Excellence for End-of-Life Transition Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Dr. Wilkie is an internationally known pain specialist with a focus on palliative and end-of-life care for patients with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses.