Lydia Villa-Komaroff, PhD
Associate Vice President for Research Adminis, Northwestern University
Lydia Villa-Komaroff was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico (not Nevada) and became interested in science at an early age. Between her junior and senior year of high school, she attended a National Science Foundation Summer Science Training Program at Texas College in Tyler, Texas. "As a Mexican American, she had to overcome her cultural training to pursue a career in science. 'Traditionally, Hispanic women are not socialized to believe they can earn a living, much less be scientists,' Komaroff says."
Despite the traditions of her culture, Lydia entered the University of Washington in Seattle in 1965, with a general interest in biology. A class taught by Dr. Robert Cahn focused her interest on the study of cell biology and development. In 1968 she transferred to Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, and received an A.B. degree (cum laude) in Biology in 1970. She spent two summers working at the National Institutes of Health with Dr. Loretta Lieve, who introduced her to molecular biology.
Before moving to Boston she married Anthony L. Komaroff. She entered the Department of Biology at M.I.T. in the fall of 1970 and began her thesis research in the spring of 1972. Her thesis was entitled "Translation of Poliovirus RNA in Eukaryotic Cell-Free Systems" and her thesis advisors were Dr. David Baltimore and Dr. Harvey Lodish. She received a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship and did post graduate work with Dr. Fotis Kafatos at Harvard University.
Because Cambridge had banned recombinant DNA work, she spent a year at Cold Spring Harbor as a guest in Dr. Tom Maniatis' laboratory. On returning to Cambridge, she joined Dr. Walter Gilbert's group. She joined the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1978 and received tenure in 1984. In 1985, she and her group moved to the department of neurology at Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.
Dr. Villa-Komaroff is an internationally recognized molecular biologist. She was a key member of the team, directed by Dr. Walter Gilbert, that first demonstrated that bacterial cells could produce insulin. This pioneering work is widely cited and is described in the book "Invisible Frontiers: The Race to Clone the Insulin Gene" by Stephen Hall.
In January of 1996, Dr.Villa-Komaroff assumed the position of professor of neurology and associate vice president for resesarch administration at Northwestern University. In this position she is responsible for the research administration units that handle the research functions at the University and will participate in research policy decisions.
She served as the Chair of the Student Advisory Committee for the university-wide graduate program in Neuroscience. Her research covered a wide spectrum of topics in cell and developmental molecular biology and she has published over 60 articles and reviews.
Most recently her research focused on the role of a growth factor related to insulin in brain development. She has served on a number of review committees for the National Institutes of Health and chaired the reviews of the first human brain transplant studies submitted for federal support. She is a member of the Advisory Committee for the Biology Directorate of the National Science Foundation, the congressionally mandated NSF committee on Equal Opportunity in Science and Engineering, and was an invited participant in the Forum on Science in the National Interest sponsored by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
She is deeply committed to the recruitment and retention of minorities in science. She is a founding member of SACNAS, the Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science and has served as a board member and vice president. She makes frequent presentations to students of all ages and she has provided research opportunities for high school and undergraduate students in her lab. She is one of 6 scientists profiled in the PBS series Discovering Women, a six part series produced by WGBH Boston. Emmy award winning producer Judith Vecchione and one of the other scientists profiled in the series, Dr. Misha Mahowald, attended WITI's 1996 Channels for Change conference to discuss the series and interact with attendees.
SACNAS is the featured young womnen's program at Channels for Change. Welcome to all the young women of SACNAS!!
