GSA is pleased to announce the recipients of the DeLill Nasser Award for Professional Development in Genetics for Fall 2022! Given twice a year to graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, DeLill Nasser Awards support attendance at meetings and laboratory courses.

The award is named in honor of DeLill Nasser, a long-time GSA supporter and National Science Foundation Program Director in Eukaryotic Genetics. Nasser was regarded by some as the “patron saint of real genetics,” shaping the field through more than two decades of leadership. She was especially supportive of young scientists, people who were beginning their careers, and those trying to open new areas of genetic inquiry. For more about Nasser, please see the tribute from Scott Hawley, published in the August 2001 issue of GENETICS.


Meareg Amare

University of Wisconsin-Madison

“Leveraging conserved inhibitor of apoptosis proteins to characterize the programmed cell death pathway in fungi.”


Puja Biswas

University of British Columbia

“Males and females have different levels of body fat storage which affect their lifespan and reproduction.”


Małgorzata Gazda

Institut Pasteur

“I study how biology is coded in the genome and how gene expression modulates phenotypical traits.”


Lydia Grmai

University of Pittsburgh/Duke University

“My research aims to leverage the power of Drosophila genetics to dissect the complex interorgan regulatory networks that link metabolism and reproduction.”


James Held

Vanderbilt University

“My research focuses on understanding how the quality of mitochondria, the cell’s energy producers, is maintained in healthy cells and under stressful conditions.”


Zoe Irons

University of Oregon

“My work centers around understanding the ways in which multiple tissues coordinate during development to form the correct body shape.”


Sarah Neuman

University of Wisconsin-Madison

“I study the role of lipid transport during animal development.”


Ana-Maria Raicu

Michigan State University

“I am studying how cancer-causing retinoblastoma proteins turn gene expression off in different cell types using the fruit fly.”


Carla Bautista Rodriguez

Université Laval

“Evolutionary dynamics of yeast hybrids facing harsh environments.”


Katheryn Rothenberg

University of Toronto

“I study how cells communicate and coordinate as a group to heal wounds.”