In Memoriam: Carolyn Walch Slayman, 1937-2016

Carolyn Slayman, Sterling Professor of Genetics and Professor of Cellular and Molecular Physiology at Yale Medical School died on December 27 at Yale New Haven Hospital. She was 79 years old and had suffered from breast cancer.

Dr. Slayman served on the faculty of the medical school for nearly a half century. She was appointed chair of the department of genetics in 1984, the first woman department chair in school history. In 1995, Dr. Slayman was named deputy dean for scientific and academic affairs at the medical school. She was the first woman to ever be named a deputy dean at the school.

A native of Portland, Maine, Dr. Slayman was a 1958 graduate of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she majored in biology and chemistry. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in biochemical genetics at Rockefeller University in New York. There, she was the only woman in her class.

After a brief term teaching at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Dr. Slayman joined the faculty at Yale in 1967 as an assistant professor in the departments of microbiology and physiology. She remained on the faculty at Yale until her death.