Nancy B. Schwartz, longtime professor and scientist with the University of Chicago, passed away on August 28. She was 82 years old.
After training as a chemist at the University of Pittsburgh, Dr. Schwartz began her tenure at the University of Chicago in 1971. She held faculty appointments in pediatrics and biochemistry and molecular biology. In 1991, she became the first woman to serve as dean of graduate affairs in the university’s biological sciences division. She would later serve as associate dean of basic science and postdoctoral affairs.
Throughout her more than five decades of scientific research, Dr. Schwartz became an authority on proteoglycan biology, studying how these molecules are synthesized, regulated, and processed and how defects in their production contribute to skeletal disorders. Her work included studies of cartilage and skeletal development and the genetic and molecular mechanisms underlying diseases involving proteoglycans.
Later in her career, Dr. Schwartz expanded her research to the nervous system, using her expertise on proteoglycan biology for studies of neurological disease. In 2006, she was named director of the University of Chicago’s Kennedy Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center.
In addition to her own research, Dr. Schwartz was dedicated to mentoring students and early-career scientists. She helped established one of the first postdoctoral associations and served on the founding advisory board of the National Postdoctoral Association. At the University of Chicago, Dr. Schwartz directed several NIH-funded grants centered on supporting aspiring scientists at multiple stages of their careers.