Tilghman, Shirley M. (1946–)

views updated

Tilghman, Shirley M. (1946–)

Canadian biochemist and educator. Born Sept 17, 1946, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Queen's University, BSc, 1968; Temple University, PhD in biochemistry, 1975.

Was secondary schoolteacher in Sierra Leone (1968–70); was a fellow at National Institutes of Health (1975–77); was assistant professor at Temple University School of Medicine (1978–79); was a member of Institute for Cancer Research (1979–86); served as adjunct associate professor of human genetics and biochemistry at University of Pennsylvania (1980–86); served as Howard Prior Professor of Life Sciences at Princeton University (1986–2001), then became Princeton's 19th president (2001); was a leader in the field of molecular biology and one of the founding members of the National Advisory Council of the Human Genome Project Initiative for the National Institutes of Health.