Four Women Join the Faculty of the School of Science at MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of technology has announced the hiring of 14 new faculty members for the School of Science which encompasses the departments of biology, chemistry, mathematics, and physics. Four of the new faculty members are women.

Laura Kiessling was hired as the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Her research is focused on how carbohydrates are assembled, recognized, and function in living cells. Professor Kiessling taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison since 1991. She is a graduate of MIT and holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Yale University.

Rebecca Lamason is a new assistant professor of biology. She investigates how intracellular bacterial pathogens hijack host cell processes to promote infection. For the past several years, Dr. Lamason has been conducting postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley. She is a graduate of Millersville University of Pennsylvania and holds a Ph.D. in immunology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.

Giulia Sacca was hired as an assistant professor of mathematics. She was an instructor of mathematics at Stony Brook University of the State University of New York System. Dr. Sacca holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mathematics from the University of Rome La Sapienza and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics at Princeton University in 2013.

Stefani Spranger has joined the biology department as an assistant professor. She studies the interactions between cancer and the immune system. Dr. Spranger has been conducting postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago. She holds bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany.