Yale Chemist Receives Top Honors from Harvard

Published: October 2, 2008

Alanna Schepartz

New Haven, Conn. — Alanna Schepartz, the Milton Harris '29 Ph.D. Professor of Chemistry at Yale, has been awarded the 2008-2009 Frank H. Westheimer Prize, Harvard has announced.

Established in 2002 in honor of Harvard chemist Frank Westheimer, the prize is awarded annually by Harvard’s chemistry and chemical biology department in recognition of outstanding research.

“As a leader in the fields of bioorganic chemistry and chemical biology, this year's Westheimer Prize awardee, Professor Alanna Schepartz, embodies the excellence and pioneering spirit evident throughout Professor Frank Westheimer's career,” said Alan Saghatelian, assistant professor in Harvard’s chemistry and chemical biology department and co-chair of the awards selection committee.

“I’m thrilled that our group’s research has been recognized by my colleagues at Harvard,” Schepartz said. “It’s such an honor to be included on a list with so many of the chemists that I’ve been inspired by over the years.”

Past recipients of the award include Daniel E. Koshland, Jr., Albert Eschenmoser and fellow Yale Professor Thomas Steitz. Schepartz will be presented with the award during a ceremony at Harvard on Dec. 1, when she will also give the annual Westheimer Prize lecture.

“This award is a well-deserved recognition for Alanna Schepartz and her world-class research program,” said Yale Provost Andrew Hamilton, who is also the Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry. “Over the past several years she has made groundbreaking contributions to our understanding of protein folding and has brought forth some truly innovative applications of artificial biopolymers.”

The Schepartz Laboratory group at Yale focuses on designing and developing new molecules as tools to monitor, manipulate or mimic interactions between and among proteins in live cells.

Schepartz joined Yale’s chemistry department in 1988 and also holds a faculty appointment in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology. She earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry from the State University of New York at Albany and her doctorate from Columbia University. Known equally for her cutting-edge research and engaging teaching style, she has been honored with several awards in the past, including a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, an ACS Cope Scholar Award, the ACS Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry, the Agnes Fay Morgan Research Award and the Dylan Hixon '88 Award for Teaching Excellence in the Natural Sciences. She was named a Professor of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2002 and has served on the advisory boards of several journals, including the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Chemistry & Biology, and Current Opinion in Chemical Biology.

PRESS CONTACT: Suzanne Taylor Muzzin 203-432-8555