Four Women Appointed to Named Professorships at MIT

The School of Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has announced the appointment of 10 faculty members to named professorships. Four of these appointments went to women.

Camilla Cattania has been named the Cecil and Ida Green Career Development Professor in the Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. Her research uses theoretical and computational methods to better understand how faults slip during and between earthquakes. Dr. Cattania earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in experimental and theoretical physics from the University of Cambridge in England. She holds a Ph.D. in geophysics from the GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences of the University of Potsdam.

Biologist Olivia Corradon. a core member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, has been named a Class of 1922 Career Development Professor. Corradin focuses on non-coding DNA variants — changes in DNA sequence that can alter the regulation of gene expression — to gain insight into pathogenesis. Dr. Corradon is a graduate of Marquette University in Milwaukee, where she majored in biochemistry. She holds a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

Physicist Erin Kara, a member of the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, has been named the Class of 1958 Career Development Professor. She is an observational astrophysicist, working to understand the physics behind how black holes grow and affect their environments. A native of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Dr. Kara holds a bachelor’s degree in physics from Barnard College in New York City. She earned a Gates Cambridge Scholarship and went on to earn a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge.

Kristin Knouse has been named the Whitehead Career Development Professor in the department of biology and the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. Dr. Knouse aims to understand how tissues sense and respond to damage, with the goal of developing new approaches for regenerative medicine. Dr. Knouse is a graduate of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where she majored in biology. She holds a Ph.D. from MIT and is a graduate of Harvard Medical School.