Three Women Scholars Appointed to Named Professorships at Major Research Universities

Ashani Weeraratna was named the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Cancer Biology at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She will also be the inaugural E.V. McCollum Professor in the department of biochemistry and molecular biology. She has been serving as co-leader of its Immunology, Microenvironment, and Metastasis Program at the Wistar Institute, an international leader in biomedical research in Philadelphia. Dr. Weeraratna is president-elect of The Society for Melanoma Research.

A native of Sri Lanka, Dr. Weeraratna came to the United States in 1988 and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. She holds a Ph.D. in molecular and cellular oncology from George Washington University.

Joy Bergelson has been named the James D. Watson Distinguished Service Professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago. Her research focuses on the interactions between the host plant, Arabidopsis thaliana, and the community of bacteria that inhabit it.

Professor Bergelson is a graduate of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Washington.

Nadine Martin, professor of communication sciences and disorders at Temple University in Philadelphia was named a Laura H. Carnall Professor. Dr. Martin also serves as director of the Eleanor M. Saffran Center for Cognitive Neurosciences and the Aphasia Rehabilitation Research Laboratory in the university’s College of Public Health.

Professor Martin is a graduate of Hofstra University in Hempstead, New York. She earned a master’s degree in speech language pathology from Northeastern University in Boston and a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Temple University.