Fleming Showcase speaker profile: Stirling Churchman
19 October 2020
In celebration of the Microbiology Society’s 75th anniversary, 'Why Microbiologists Matter: a digital celebration of the journeys of our members’ will include a Fleming Showcase between Monday 23 afternoon and all day Tuesday 24 November 2020. We will be welcoming a range of guest speakers whose profiles we will share in the lead up to the event. This week we learn more about Professor Stirling Churchman, Harvard Medical School, USA.
The Fleming Prize, named after founding member and the first President of the Society, Sir Alexander Fleming FRS, is awarded each year to an early career researcher who has achieved an outstanding research record within 12 years of being awarded their PhD.
The Fleming Showcase will be a celebration of outstanding science in recognition of the legacy of past Fleming Prize winners and it will demonstrate the impact of both established and up-and-coming scientists in addressing important challenges. The showcase is organised by a Committee of Fleming Prize Winners, Chaired by Sir Paul Nurse FRS.
Stirling Churchman
Stirling Churchman, Ph.D. is Associate Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. Dr Churchman is particularly interested in how gene regulation is coordinated across the cell, from the nucleus to the mitochondria.
Her lab developed native elongation transcript sequencing, NET-seq, that directly visualizes global transcriptional activity through mapping RNA polymerase density genome-wide with single-nucleotide resolution. Her group also discovered that cytosolic and mitochondrial translation programs are synchronized during mitochondrial biogenesis. A goal of the Churchman lab is to determine whether other layers of regulation are coordinated and the molecular mechanisms behind them.
Dr Churchman majored in physics at Cornell University and obtained her doctorate in physics from Stanford University in 2008. She did her postdoctoral training with Jonathan Weissman at University of California, San Francisco. Dr Churchman joined the Genetics Department at Harvard Medical School as an Assistant Professor in 2011. She is also an Associate Member of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. Dr Churchman has received a number of awards, including the Dale F. Frey Award for Breakthrough Scientists by the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface and the Glenn Award for Research in Biological Mechanisms of Aging.
On being invited to speak at the Fleming Showcase event Professor Churchman said:
“It is a pleasure to honor Alexander Fleming’s legacy by participating in the 2020 Fleming Showcase. His discovery of penicillin altered the course of the 20th century and continues to impact every person alive today!”
Find out more about the Fleming Showcase event and register your place on our website.