| 1 | Name: | Dr. Lia Addadi | |
| Institution: | Weizmann Institute of Science | ||
| Year Elected: | 2020 | ||
| Class: | 1. Mathematical and Physical Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 102. Chemistry and Chemical Biochemistry | ||
| Residency: | International | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1950 | ||
Born in Padova, Italy, Prof. Lia Addadi obtained her MSc degree in organic chemistry at the Università degli Studi di Padova (1973) and earned a PhD in structural chemistry from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1979. After conducting postdoctoral research at the Weizmann Institute and at Harvard University, she joined the ranks of the Institute’s Department of Structural Chemistry (now the Department of Structural Biology) in 1982. Prof. Addadi served as Head of the Department of Structural Biology (1994-2001) and as Dean of the Faculty of Chemistry (2001-2004). In 2008, she became Dean of the Feinberg Graduate School, a position she held until 2014. Since 2018, she is the President’s Advisor for Advancing Women in Science. She received numerous prizes and honors, among them the 1998 Prelog Medal in Stereochemistry, and the 2011 Aminoff Prize by the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. In 2017 she was elected to the US National Academy of Sciences, and in 2018 she received an honorary PhD from the ETH in Zurich. In her research, Lia Addadi addresses questions related to the formation of crystals in organisms, either fulfilling a physiological function, or pathologically induced, such as in atherosclerosis or osteoporosis. She studies the interactions between crystals and their biological environments, spanning several orders of magnitude from the molecular level to the cell and tissue level. In collaboration with Steve Weiner she investigates the strategies and design principles of mineralized tissues in biomineralization, from the formation pathways to the architecture, and finally to structure-function relations. Lia Addadi was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2020. | |||