Kravis WiSE promotes gender equity in science by providing stable funding and professional support for women in science at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) is proud to announce four Sloan Kettering Institute (SKI) researchers have been named 2024 Marie-Josée Kravis Women in Science Endeavor (Kravis WiSE) fellowship grant recipients. Kravis WiSE was established in 2020, and is now in its fifth class. Kravis WiSE remains a multifaceted initiative designed to support women in science and promote gender equity at MSK and beyond. In addition to funding, the initiative provides mentoring and professional development opportunities to females pursuing careers in biomedical research at MSK and to all scientists seeking childcare coverage to enable travel to conferences.
“The Kravis WiSE program stands as a testament to the importance of providing stable funding and professional support for women in science, ensuring their voices and talents are heard and valued. This March, as we honor the achievements of women in science, we also celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the four winners of the Kravis WiSE fellowship,” said Ushma Neill, PhD, Vice President, Scientific Education and Training, at MSK. “These women represent the future of scientific innovation and discovery, embodying the spirit of determination and excellence that propels us forward in our collective pursuit of knowledge and progress.”
About the 2024 Fellowship Grant Recipients
This year’s winners are postdoctoral fellows Vittoria Bocchi and Julia Brunner and graduate students Melissa Yao and Tzippora Chwat-Edelstein.
- Vittoria Bocchi, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lorenz Studer Lab, was awarded a Kravis WiSE Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Bocchi’s research focuses on understanding the instructions necessary for making one particularly valuable type of cell: the A9 dopamine neuron. This is the cell type that mysteriously dies in Parkinson’s disease, leading to the tremors and loss of motor function that are characteristic of the disease.
- Julia Brunner, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Lydia Finley Lab, was awarded a Kravis WiSE Postdoctoral Fellowship. Dr. Brunner’s research focuses on how metabolic pathways enable the emergence and maintenance of phenotypic heterogeneity in stem cells and cancer cells. Her training experience in both immunology and cellular metabolism have emphasized the causative role metabolites can play in normal development and disease.
- Melissa Yao, a third year PhD student in the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School and a member of the Andrea Ventura Lab, was awarded a Kravis WiSE Graduate Fellowship. Ms. Yao’s research focuses on the biology of focal amplifications mediated by extrachromosomal circular DNAs (ecDNAs), a major class of cancer-associated mutations that are thought to contribute to cancer progression and evolution. Her work has been instrumental in the generation and characterization of the first cell lines with inducible oncogene amplification mediated by ecDNAs.
- Tzippora Chwat-Edelstein, a PhD student in the Weill Cornell-MSK Graduate School (WCGS) and a member of the Xiaolan Zhao Lab was awarded a Kravis WiSE Graduate Fellowship. Ms. Chwat-Edelstein’s research focuses on investigating the mechanisms of genomic integrity maintenance that are affected by exposure to genotoxins. Specifically, she is investigating two key mechanisms including how SUMOylation regulates homologous recombination and how degradation of the RPA sensor is linked to the recovery of the DNA damage response.
Since its inception, there have been 13 Kravis WiSE fellows. With access to continued mentorship in promoting up-and-coming trainees, celebrating women in science, and investing in professional development, Kravis WiSE recipients bring pioneering ideas to cancer research while also amplifying the need for female representation in scientific and medical leadership. To that end, Mijin Kim, PhD, a former postdoctoral researcher at MSK and 2022 Kravis WiSE fellowship recipient, was recently recognized with the prestigious STAT Wunderkind award , and was recognized on MIT Tech Review’s “Innovator Under 35” annual list.
MSK is extremely grateful to Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis, whose financial generosity has enabled this programming. As Vice Chair of the MSK Board and Chair of the Sloan Kettering Institute Board, Mrs. Kravis has long advocated for supporting science at MSK. This initiative reflects Mrs. Kravis’ passion and rightly carries her name.
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