Woman in
Science
Joan A. Steitz
by Kelly Hoberg
Joan
Steitz was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She attended Antioch College during a
time when the science program was strong and sent numerous students to graduate
science programs. The college has a work-study program, meaning that students
alternate three months of work with study. Students often rotated through the
same job. Steitz landed a position in a MIT laboratory that researched molecular
biology, a subject not yet part of the Antioch undergraduate curriculum. The
experience interested Steitz, however, she believed that she would not be able
to manage a family around the day-and-night work and therefore decided on
medical school. She earned a B.S. degree in chemistry in 1963.
The summer before she was to
attend medical school, Steitz was given a position by embryologist Joseph Gall
at the University of Minnesota. She worked on an individual project. By August
she switched plans to go to graduate school instead of medical school.
Steitz attended Harvard for graduate school. She completed her doctoral work under the supervision of biochemist James Watson, who discovered the double helix along with Francis Crick. She was his first female graduate student and he was very supportive to her and the many female scientists to follow. Believing that Watson was impressed with academic ability, Steitz had a wonderful experience in his lab. She married Tom Steitz, currently a structural biologist and professor of biophysics and biochemistry at Yale, and received a doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology in 1967.
After
graduate school, Steitz completed three years of post-doctoral work at the MRC
Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. She joined the Yale
faculty in 1970, has been a professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry
since 1978, and is the head of her department. Studying organization, control,
and the genetic makeup of the mammalian genome with emphasis on the molecular
aspects, Steitz’s laboratory investigates how small RNA and protein-containing
particles contribute to basic life processes. This is important for
understanding molecular biology and for improving the understanding of rheumatic
disease.
Steitz has been a Howard Hughes
Medical Institute investigator since 1986. In 1983 she was elected to the
National Academy of Science. In 1986 she was awarded the National Medal of
Science. She received the first Weizmann Women in Science Award in 1994. Since
1994, Steitz has served as the associate editor of the journal Genes and
Development. She was, in 1998, chairman of the President’s Committee on
the National Medal Science. Currently, she is a nonresident member of the Salk
Institute, scientific director of the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for
Medical Research, a member of the External Advisory Committee of the Dana-Farber
Cancer Institute, and a member of the Board of Scientific Advisors of the
Whitehead Institute.
In an interview by Elga Wasserman in December 1997, being
a woman has affected Steitz’s career, she states. Her training was overseen by
male faculty members since there were no women on faculties at major
universities in the 1960s. She focused on different things and different areas
than male colleagues. For example, Steitz chose a very risky research at MRC
that none of the men dared to take on and commit to. She had some success.
Steitz attributed her success that she has achieved as a scientist to a good institution, department, students, and colleagues as well as the fact that today it is easier for women to do well. "It may help to be female," she stated, "but on the other hand not all females succeed, and there are certainly a lot of males who succeed very well." With that said, Steitz was certainly one who succeeded by being a pioneer in her field.
Wasserman, Elga. The Door in the Dream: Conversations with Eminent Women
in Science.
Picture from http://www.hhmi.org.