Amy C. Rosenzweig, professor of molecular biosciences and member of the Chemistry of Life Processes Institute at Northwestern University, has been elected to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences.

Membership in the academy is one of the highest honors given to a scientist in the United States.

Rosenzweig is a leader in the fields of bioinorganic chemistry and structural biology. Her laboratory focuses on metalloproteins, which comprise up to 50 percent of all proteins. Rosenzweig’s work has provided seminal insights into how metalloenzymes catalyze complex and difficult chemical transformations and how cells acquire and distribute essential yet toxic metal ions.

Rosenzweig and her research group use X-ray crystallographic, spectroscopic, biochemical and genomic approaches to attack problems at the forefront of bioinorganic chemistry. Current areas of interest include biological methane oxidation, metal uptake and transport, and oxygen activation by metalloenzymes.

Her numerous honors include being elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2014) and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2007). Rosenzweig was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2003.

Rosenzweig received the Royal Society of Chemistry Joseph Chatt Award (2014), the American Chemical Society Nobel Laureate Signature Award for Graduate Education (2006) and an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Amherst College (2005). She is currently on the editorial boards of the journals Science and Biochemistry.

National Academy of Sciences

The National Academy of Sciences is a private, nonprofit institution that was established under a congressional charter signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1863. It recognizes achievement in sciences by election to membership, and — with the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine — provides science, engineering, and health policy advice to the federal government and other organizations.

Original article written by Hilary Hurd Anyaso and published on Northwestern Now.