Eminent Scholar Award

Eminent Scholar Award Recipients

March, 2017
Dr. Nancy Hopkins, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus at MIT - Dr. Hopkins has focused her career on cancer research for 40 years, identifying tumor heterogeneity associated with treatment resistance, developing methods of insertional mutagenesis on zebrafish, and isolating greater than 550 developmental mutations with human analogs. She is a member of the National Academy of Science Health and Medicine Division (previously the Institute of Medicine), a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and previous winner of the MD Anderson Cancer Center Margaret L. Kripke Award. In addition, she has been extensively involved in equalizing the status of women faculty and is credited with launching a national re-examination of gender bias in academia, making her an ideal recipient of this award celebrating exceptional women scholars.

October, 2015
Lynda Chin, M.D. - Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Transformation and Chief Innovation Officer for Health Affairs for the University of Texas System. She was the founding chair of Genomic Medicine and scientific director of the Institute for Applied Cancer Science at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a renowned physician scientist recognized for her research in cancer genomics and personalized cancer medicine and was recently elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies.

2014
Diana J. Wilkie, Ph.D., RN, FAAN - Professor in the Department of Biobehavioral Health, Endowed Chair for Nursing Research, and Director of the Center of Excellence for End-of-Life Transition Research at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

2013
Barbara Gilchrest, M.D. - Professor and former chair of the Department of Dermatology at Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center. 

2012
Pamela J. Bjorkman, Ph.D. - Max Delbruck Professor of Biology, Investigator Howard Hugues Medical Institute, California Institute of Technology presented her keynote, "Overcoming HIV Pathways for Escape using Rationally-Designed Anti-HIV Antibodies", and received the 2012 MUSC Eminent Scholar Award.

2011
Cynthia Kenyon, Ph.D. - Herbert Boyer Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco - Director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at UCSF presented her keynote, "Cells and Pathways that Control the Aging of C.elegans", and received the 2011 MUSC Eminent Scholar Award.

2010
Kristi Anseth, Ph.D. - Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Distinguished Professor, Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Colorado-Boulder, presented her keynote "Swell Gels: Engineering Biomaterials to Promote Healing" and received the 2010 MUSC Eminent Scholar Award.

2009
Elaine Fuchs, Ph.D. - Investigator Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Rebecca C. Lancefield Professor of Mammalian Cell Biology and Development from The Rockefeller University, presented her keynote “Stem Cells of the Skin: Biology and Clinical Promise” and received the 2009 MUSC Eminent Scholar award.

2008
Catherine D. DeAngelis, M.D., M.P.H. - Editor-in-Chief of JAMA and Scientific Publications and Professor, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, presented her seminar and received the 2008 MUSC Eminent Scholar Award (PDF).

2007
Constance Cepko, Ph.D. - Professor of Genetics, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Harvard Medical School, presented her seminar and received the inaugural MUSC Eminent Scholar Award.