Kasturika Shankar

Member News By Kasturika Shankar Vassar College has granted tenure to Colin Echeverría Aitken of the biology department and biochemistry program and Krystle McLaughlin of the chemistry department and biochemistry program, promoting both to associate professors following a vote by the Board of Trustees. Aitken and McLaughlin are two of eleven faculty members across ten disciplines to receive tenure in this round of promotions.

Keri–Lyn Kozul, a postdoctoral research fellow at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, received the 2025 Elliot L. Elson Education and Training Award from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics. This award supports educational opportunities for outstanding students and postdoctoral trainees in the Department. The award is named for Elliot L.

John Tansey, professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Otterbein University in Westerville, Ohio, has been named chair of the university's department of chemistry. Tansey has been a faculty member at Otterbein since 2002, teaching courses such as general chemistry and advanced biochemistry. Tansey’s research focuses on elucidating the role of lipid droplet proteins in lipid storage and disease.