The Mary Ellen Jones Dissertation Prize is awarded to recognize the most distinguished dissertation in Molecular Biophysics & Biochemistry submitted during the academic year. Mary Ellen Jones received her Ph.D. from Yale’s Biochemistry Department in 1951 working in the lab of Joseph Fruton. She devoted her career to studying enzymes involved in amino acid and nucleic acid metabolism. Working in an era when it was difficult for women to advance she was frequently the pathbreaker, including serving as the first woman to chair a department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Medical School, where she spent most of her career. Mary Ellen Jones was the recipient of many prizes including the Graduate School’s Wilbur Cross Medal and election to the National Academy of Sciences. See here for a more detailed biography.
List of Recipients:
2023 - Carson Bryant, Sarah Prophet, Vishok Srikanth
2022 - Megan Brady and Clorice Reinhardt
2021 - Martha Braun (Karatekin lab) and Nicolle Rosa-Mercado (Steitz lab) - Shared Award
2020 - Tara Alpert (Neugebauer lab) and Jeremy Schofield (Simon lab) - Shared Award
2019 - Katie Farley-Barnes (Baserga lab) and Brady Summers (Xiong lab) - Shared Award
2018 - Erin Duffy (Simon lab) and Madeline Sherlock (Breaker lab) - Shared Award
2017 - Daifei Liu (Steitz and Sindelar, advisors)
2016 - Curtis Schauder (Reinisch lab)
2015 - Hoong Chuin Lim (Christine Jacobs-Wagner lab)
2014 - David Taylor (Hongwei Wang lab)
2013 - Hoy Shen (De Camilli lab)/Adam Trexler (Rhoades lab) – Shared Award
2012 - Christopher Cheng (Saltzman lab)/Brannon McCullough (De La Cruz lab) – Shared Award
2011 - Shih-Chieh “Jeff” Ti (Pollard lab)
2010 - Harvey Chin (De La Cruz lab)
2009 - Matthew Calabrese (Miranker lab)
2008 - Mary Stahley (Strobel lab) and Adrian Olivares (De La Cruz lab) – Shared Award