Susan Ackerman’s pioneering work using mouse genetics has identified novel genes, pathways, and networks involved in neurodevelopment and age-related death of neurons in the central nervous system.
Dr. Ackerman is the Stephen W. Kuffler Chair of Biology and a professor in the Neurobiology Section in the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of California, San Diego; she is also a professor in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the Vice Dean of Research for the UCSD School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. from UCLA and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Illinois Medical School and the Wistar Institute. Prior to her move to UCSD in 2016, Dr. Ackerman was a professor at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where she was a faculty member for nineteen years.