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Two VCU faculty ranked among 2022’s top female scientists in nation and world
March 13, 2023
Sarah Spiegel and Barbara Boyan were recognized by Research.com for their groundbreaking research impact.
Research.com has named two Virginia Commonwealth University faculty members among the top female scientists both nationally and globally in 2022: Sarah Spiegel, Ph.D., professor and chair of the Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Department at the VCU School of Medicine, and Barbara D. Boyan, Ph.D., executive director of the Institute for Engineering and Medicine and Alice T. and William H. Goodwin, Jr. Professor in the VCU Department of Biomedical Engineering.
“Appearing on this list reflects not only high interest in these specific sub-fields but also of the high quality of our researchers’ work,” said P. Srirama Rao, Ph.D., vice president for Research and Innovation at VCU. “It is really a proud moment for VCU to know that our women scientists are nationally prominent, including being among the top 100. It’s also inspirational to the next generation of female scientists that they can achieve excellence and prominence at VCU.”
In the national ranking, Spiegel is the only scientist in the state to crack the top 100 at No. 96, with a global ranking of 148. She is recognized for her numerous, seminal contributions to understanding the biological functions of the lipid sphingosine-1-phosphate, “a molecule she originally discovered in the mid-1990s and has since been found to play important roles in cancer progression, inflammation and cardiovascular disease,” Rao said. “A colleague of hers says that she launched and sustained ‘an entire field of biochemistry.’”
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