| Intro | American medical researcher |
| A.K.A. | Leslie B. Vosshall, Leslie Vosshall |
| Is |
Neuroscientist Researcher |
| From | United States of America |
| Type |
Academia Science |
| Gender | female |
| Birth | 5 July 1965, Lausanne, Lausanne District, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland |
| Age: | 55 years |
Leslie Birgit Vosshall, Ph.D., (born July 5, 1965) is an American neurobiologist and currently an HHMI Investigator and the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor of Neurogenetics and Behavior at The Rockefeller University. She is also the director of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute at The Rockefeller University. She is well known for her contributions in the field of olfaction, particularly for the discovery and subsequent characterization of the insect olfactory receptor family.
Early life
Leslie Vosshall was born in Lausanne, Switzerland where she spent most of her early childhood. Vosshall moved to New Jersey when she was 8 years old. She spent summers from age 17 to 19 in her uncle, Philip Dunham’s, summer laboratory with Gerald Weissmann at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole. Vosshall said this experience was “an incredible introduction to the practice of science.”
Education
Vosshall received her B.A. from Columbia University in 1987 and her Ph.D. from Rockefeller University in 1993. She then returned to Columbia for a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of future Nobel laureate Richard Axel from 1993-1997. She then worked in the position of Associate Research Scientist in Dr. Axel’s laboratory from 1997-2000. Vosshall was offered the position of Assistant Professor at The Rockefeller University in 2000, and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006. In April 2010, she was granted tenure and is currently the Robin Chemers Neustein Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics and Behavior. She served as Associate Director of the Kavli Neural Systems Institute from 2015-2016 and was promoted to Director in 2016.
Awards and Honors
- Beckman Young Investigators Award (2001)
- McKnight Neuroscience Scholar Award (2001)
- National Science Foundation Early Career Development Award (2001)
- John Merck Fund Scholar (2002)
- Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (2002)
- New York City Mayor’s Award for Excellence in Science and Technology (2005)
- Irma T. Hirschl/Monique Weill-Caulier Trust Research Award (2005)
- Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists (2007).
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator (2008)
- Lawrence C. Katz Prize, Duke University (2009)
- Dart/NYU Biotechnology Achievement Award (2010)
- Gill Young Investigator Award (2011)
- National Academy of Sciences, Member
Key Papers
Selected other publications
- McBride, C.S. et al. Evolution of mosquito preference for humans linked to an odorant receptor. Nature 515, 222–227 (2014).
- Bushdid, C. et al. Humans can discriminate more than 1 trillion olfactory stimuli. Science 343, 1370–1372 (2014).