The 2013 Merck Millipore Alice C Evans Award for Leadership in Clinical Microbiology has been awarded to Joan Steitz, a Professor at Yale University in the US. The award was established by the American Society of Microbiology (ASM) Committee on the Status of Women in Microbiology and given in honour of Alice C Evans, the first woman to be elected ASM President, in 1928. The award recognises individuals who have made significant contributions toward the advancement of women in microbiology.
Dr Jeffrey Miller, ASM President, presented the award to Dr Steitz at the recent annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
‘I am greatly honoured to receive this award. There are so many deserving women in the field of microbiology who have worked hard to increase the representation of women in science,’ said Dr Steitz. ‘When I started my career, I almost didn't continue because I had never seen a female lab director or professor. In the end, my fascination with RNA triumphed, and I am grateful that I have been able to work on problems that interest me.’
Progress is clear and women in science have come a long way, but we have further to go
In the last decade, starting with her participation in a report issued by the National Academy of Sciences, Dr Steitz has contributed to the dialogue on causes and solutions for the under-representation of women in science.
‘Progress is clear and women in science have come a long way, but we have further to go,’ she said. ‘Awareness of human responses like implicit bias is the first step; I believe that we need to understand the problem before we can solve it.’
One of the leading scientists in her field, Dr Steitz is best known for her pioneering work in RNA. Along with her colleagues, she discovered and defined the function of small ribonucleoproteins (snRNPs) in pre-messenger RNA – the earliest product of DNA transcription – and was the first to learn that these cellular complexes (snRNPs) play a key role in processing messenger RNA by excising noncoding regions and splicing together the resulting segments.
