Laura A. Katz
Academic background
EducationA.B., Harvard College
PhD, 1996, Cornell University
ThesisMolecular evolution of phosphoglucose isomerase at two phylogenetic levels (1996)
Academic work
InstitutionsSmith College
Scholia has a profile for Laura A. Katz (Q56782243).

Laura Aline Katz is an American biologist who is the Elsie Damon Simonds Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College.

Early life and education

Katz was born to Phyllis Beck Katz and Arnold Martin Katz.[1][2][3] She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College and her PhD from Cornell University.[4]

Career

Katz joined the faculty at Smith College in 1997 where she co-founded Smith’s Achieving Excellence in Mathematics, Engineering and Science (AEMES) program. She also established the Katz Laboratory which focuses on "elucidating principles of evolution through reconstruction of evolutionary trees, community sampling of diverse microorganisms from local environments and analyses of genome evolution."[5] Katz also began studying the biodiversity of eukaryotic microbes to find eukaryotic life on earth which cannot be seen by humans.[6][7]

As an associate professor of biological sciences, Katz was named to the Biodiversity Science and Education Initiative to examine the deteriorating condition of the earth’s biodiversity.[8] She later received a five-year $1.2 million grant to closely examine the evolutionary relationships among 200 eukaryotic microbes.[9] Katz was also appointed one of 11 principal investigators chosen for the Open Tree of Life project, a project aimed at designing a complete online "tree of life" to represent all life forms on Earth and their evolutionary history.[10]

In 2019, Katz was awarded a $443,222 grant from the National Science Foundation for her research project "Collaborative Proposal: Combining single-cell ‘omics’ and community analyses to reveal functional and genetic diversity in marine planktonic ciliates."[11]

References

  1. ^ Gover, Tzivia (September 28, 2020). "This Writer's Way". smith.edu. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  2. ^ "Arnold Katz Obituary (1932 - 2016) - Hartford, CT - Hartford Courant". www.legacy.com. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  3. ^ Willerson, James T.; Dhalla, Naranjan S. (2016-04-01). "In Memoriam: Arnold M. Katz, MD (1932–2016)". Texas Heart Institute Journal. 43 (2): 106–107. doi:10.14503/THIJ-16-5827. ISSN 0730-2347. PMC 4845582.
  4. ^ "Laura A. Katz". smith.edu. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  5. ^ ""Change-Your-Life" Teaching: Three Faculty Members Awarded Sherrerd Prize". smith.edu. May 4, 2017. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  6. ^ Katamay, Kaja (June 20, 2014). "It's a Small, Small, Biodiverse World". smith.edu. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  7. ^ Laura A. Katz; Jessica R Grant (23 December 2014). "Taxon-rich phylogenomic analyses resolve the eukaryotic tree of life and reveal the power of subsampling by sites". Systematic Biology. 64 (3): 406–415. doi:10.1093/SYSBIO/SYU126. ISSN 1063-5157. PMID 25540455. Wikidata Q28254627.
  8. ^ "Smith Women Named to Prominent Groups". smith.edu. Winter 2006. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  9. ^ "Smith College Leads Peers in Decade of National Science Foundation Funding". smith.edu. March 11, 2010. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  10. ^ McCoy Ebbets, Jan (December 12, 2012). "Building the complete tree of life, microbe by microbe". smith.edu. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  11. ^ "People News, September 2019". smith.edu. August 29, 2019. Retrieved December 18, 2020.

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