Sandra Schmid

Sandra Schmid is the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair in Cellular and Molecular Biology and Chair of the Department of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center. Dr. Schmid was born in Vancouver, Canada and received her B.Sc. Degree (Honours) in Cell Biology at the University of British Columbia. She completed her PhD in biochemistry at Stanford University (with James Rothman) and postdoctoral studies at Yale (with Ira Mellman and Ari Helenius) supported by a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship and a Lucille P. Markey Scholar award. In 1988 she set up her lab at The Scripps Research Institute where she moved through the ranks to eventually serve as Chairman of the Department of Cell Biology from 2001-2011. Schmid's research is directed towards elucidating the molecular mechanisms and regulation of clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME), and analyzing the structure and function of dynamin, a prototypical fission GTPase and the master-regulator of CME. Her work has been recognized by an ASCB/WICB Jr. Career Recognition Award, an NIH MERIT Award, the William C. Rose Award from the ASBMB, the ASCB/WICB Sr. Leadership Award, and the Sir Bernard Katz Award from the Biophysics Society. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and received an honorary Ph.D. from Stockholm University in 2015. In addition, to her research, Schmid has been a leader in the cell biology community, as co-founding editor of Traffic, Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Biology of the Cell and President of the American Society for Cell Biology.