Newsstand Menu

Watson School of Biological Sciences commencement scheduled for April 30, 2006

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Cold Spring Harbor, NY — Four more students— Santanu Chakraborty, Rebecca C. Ewald, Charles Kopec and Marco Mangone—will join the growing group of alumni to receive their Ph.D.s from the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Sunday, April 30, 2006 at 4 p.m. in Grace Auditorium. At the ceremony, Honorary Degrees will be presented to Susan Hockfield, Ph.D., President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., Professor, Harvard University; and Matt Ridley, Visiting Professor, Watson School of Biological Sciences.

The Watson School of Biological Sciences was founded in 1999 as a doctoral degree-granting educational program of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. The curriculum guides the development of a small number of outstanding Ph.D. candidates into creative and independent scientists. Unlike traditional Ph.D. programs, in which candidates often spend six or more years to obtain a degree, the Watson School is structured to grant the Ph.D. degree after only four years of intensive study. For more information, visit www.cshl.edu/gradschool.

2006 Watson School of Biological Sciences Degree Recipients:

Santanu Chakraborty
Indian Institute of Technology – Bombay
George A. and Marjorie H. Anderson Fellow
Entering Class of 2000

Rebecca C. Ewald
King’s College London
Engelhorn Scholar
Entering class of 2000

Charles Kopec
Rutgers University
Goldberg-Lindsay Fellow – Watson School of Biological Sciences
Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award – National Institutes of Health
Entering Class of 2001

Marco Mangone
La Sapienza University, Rome
DANA Foundation Fellow
Entering Class of 2000

Watson School of Biological Sciences Honorary Degree Recipients:

Susan Hockfield, Ph.D.

Dr. Susan Hockfield earned a B.A. in biology from the University of Rochester and a Ph.D. from the Georgetown University School of Medicine, carrying out her dissertation research at the National Institutes of Health. She joined the scientific staff at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 1980, and served as director of the Summer Neurobiology Program from 1985 to 1997, concurrent with her teaching post at Yale. She also served as a Scientific Trustee until 2004. Today, Dr. Hockfield serves as the sixteenth president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She assumed office on December 6, 2004 and is the first life scientist to hold that position.

Tom Maniatis, Ph.D.

Tom Maniatis, Ph.D., is the Thomas H. Lee Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University. He was born in Denver, Colorado, and received his B.A. and M.S. degrees in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Colorado. After receiving his Ph.D. in molecular biology at Vanderbilt University, Dr. Maniatis carried out postdoctoral studies at Harvard University with Mark Ptashne and at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, England, with Fred Sanger. He has held research and academic positions at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California. Dr. Maniatis is best known for pioneering the development and application of recombinant DNA methods. These methods were disseminated worldwide through the publication of the book Molecular Cloning , co-authored by Dr. Maniatis, Dr. Joe Sambrook and Dr. Ed Fritsch, published by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

Matt Ridley, Ph.D.

Matt Ridley received his bachelor of arts from Magdalen College, Oxford, where he also earned a doctorate in zoology in 1983. For the next decade, he served as a science correspondent, science and technology editor, and both the Washington and American editor for The Economist . A prolific writer, Dr. Ridley has published articles and columns in the most prestigious worldwide media and has published nearly one book each year since 1989. Included among his titles are Warts and All ; The Red Queen ; Down to Earth ; and The Origins of Virtue . He has earned numerous book awards for Genome and Nature via Nurture , and his latest book, Francis Crick , was published this year. A visiting professor at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Dr. Ridley is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Honorary President of the International Centre for Life. He has earned an honorary doctorate from Buckingham University and is an honorary fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Written by: Communications Department | publicaffairs@cshl.edu | 516-367-8455

Stay informed

Sign up for our newsletter to get the latest discoveries, upcoming events, videos, podcasts, and a news roundup delivered straight to your inbox every month.

  Newsletter Signup

About Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

Founded in 1890, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has shaped contemporary biomedical research and education with programs in cancer, neuroscience, plant biology and quantitative biology. Home to eight Nobel Prize winners, the private, not-for-profit Laboratory employs 1,000 people including 600 scientists, students and technicians. The Meetings & Courses Program annually hosts more than 12,000 scientists. The Laboratory’s education arm also includes an academic publishing house, a graduate school and the DNA Learning Center with programs for middle, high school, and undergraduate students and teachers. For more information, visit www.cshl.edu