Class of 1966

Year Inducted 2006

Dr. Virginia (Ginger) A. Zakian, renown research scientist and teacher, is The Harry C. Wiess Professor in the Life Sciences, an endowed chair, at Princeton University. She is a Professor of Molecular Biology at Princeton, as well. Her research interests include telomeres, DNA helicases, chromosome stability, and genome integrity. She is author of over 115 scientific publications, has trained 75+ students and post-doctoral fellows, and has been an invited speaker at over 200 meetings and seminars throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and LA. Ginger is a fellow in the American Academy for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology. The National Institutes of Health gave her the Merit Award, an unsolicited award for continuous high-level contributions given to fewer than 3 scientists in the United States per year. Dr. Zakian has more than 15 endowed lectureships and has worked to promote women and minorities in science. She chairs a faculty task force at Princeton to attract and retain highly talented women faculty in the natural sciences and engineering. She has also served as an advisor to the National Institutes of Health and other agencies. Somehow she has found time to also mentor the junior faculty in Molecular Biology at Princeton.

Upon graduation from Upper Darby High School in 1966, Zakian earned a degree from Cornell University in 1970 and a Ph.D. from Yale University in 1975.