The Genetics Society of America (GSA) and The Gruber Foundation are thrilled to announce the 2025 recipients of the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award: Ai Ing Lim of Princeton University, Pavitra Muralidhar of the University of Chicago, and Kavita Rangan of Johns Hopkins University.

Funded by The Gruber Foundation and overseen by GSA, the Rosalind Franklin Young Investigator Award is granted once every three years to women who have conducted exceptionally original and creative research in the field of genetics and have recently begun an independent faculty-level position. Each awardee will receive a $75,000 award to be distributed over three years to support their research, pushing forward groundbreaking science and inspiring new generations of women in the field of genetics.

Ai Ing Lim

Growing up in a small town in Malaisa, Ai Ing Lim didn’t always envision a career in science. “People were constantly saying, because you’re a woman, you shouldn’t do this,” she recalled. Thankfully, Lim didn’t let these remarks dim her ambition and instead completed a PhD in Immunology from the Pasteur Institute in Paris, becoming a leader in molecular biology research. “I feel very lucky that on my path in France and the United States, people really recognize my effort and contribution to science,” she shared.

Lim’s lab at Princeton University—the Lab of Infant & Maternal Immunity, or the Limunity Lab—studies how the body adapts to pregnancy and lactation, as well as long-term effects on both mother and child. Her group is currently at work on an innovative mouse model that explores the biology underlying maternal-offspring immunity. While historically, research in this area has used blood and placenta, Lim’s group uses tissues where infection and inflammation unfold. “We do experiments almost every day, but oftentimes the result is not really what we expected—those are actually the experiments that make me most excited,” she explained. These daily investigations are poised to uncover crucial evolutionary insights on what shapes immune response over generations.

Understanding how maternal tissue immunity changes throughout pregnancy, lactation, and the postpartum period could have substantial implications in the long term, potentially mitigating pregnancy complications and improving pediatric health, while exploring the etiology of immune disorders and how immunity is impacted by our environment. “The more I study pregnancy and lactation, I am amazed by how this system works—how mammals can experience such big changes, how the biology is running this way,” said Lim.

Ultimately, having defied the traditional gender roles of her upbringing to focus on an underfunded research area—women’s health—Lim encourages young scientists to pursue what fascinates them, especially women. “Throughout our career, there’s always something. I guess we should ignore all the comments and just do what we want to do,” she said. “I really can’t think about doing something other than science.”

Pavitra Muralidhar

As an undergraduate herpetologist, Pavitra Muralidhar started her academic journey studying frogs before switching her focus to reptiles during her PhD in Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. “I spent a lot of time in the Bahamas chasing lizards,” she recalled. It wasn’t until a colleague brought up Francis Crick’s “gossip test”—which posits that your greatest passion is likely the one you can’t stop talking about—that Muralidhar began earnestly exploring sex ratio theory and sex chromosome evolution, to understand the causes and consequences of the biological diversity between the sexes.

As a theoretical biologist at the University of Chicago, Muralidhar’s research priorities are wide-ranging, but she is most drawn to the intricacies of sex determination and the evolution of sex chromosomes. “It fascinated me that there are these parts of the genome, that who we are is not some coherent thing—we’re a collection of these different genomic elements, all of which have their own evolutionary interests,” said Muralidhar. “Looking at these biological systems, thinking of theories for why they work and testing them…they’re just really beautiful, in a way,” she added.

The goal of Muralidhar’s research program is to develop new theories for the evolution of sex and its downstream effects. Her work requires a unique blend of her background in evolutionary theory exploring research questions from a gene’s eye view, and her postdoctoral work looking at the genomics of complex traits. Her group will investigate fundamental evolutionary processes, such as heterochiasmy, a widespread phenomenon in which DNA is “shuffled” at different rates in males and females.

For Muralidhar, one of the pleasures of evolutionary biology is the diversity of topics to be discovered and the analytical thinking that this work inspires among her and her mentees. “This grant means freedom, in a way,” she said. “I can encourage some of my students to work on exciting projects. It’s more time for thinking, rather than running to get the next grant application. A lot of my biggest projects have come from this type of free-range thinking. I can take more risks,” she emphasized.  

Kavita Rangan

Kavita Rangan’s interest in science came from her love for natural history and fascination with biological diversity. That broad curiosity led her to study Microbial Biology at the University of California, Berkeley.  “Through incredible mentorship, I fell in love with experimentation,” said Rangan. She went on to complete a PhD in Chemical Biology and Microbial Pathogenesis at the Rockefeller University.

Today, Rangan’s work lies at the intersection of the changing environment and biological plasticity. While completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory in Massachusetts, Rangan began to study cephalopods (squid, octopus, and cuttlefish) and the phenomenon of RNA editing—a strategy that allows organisms to adapt at the cellular level in response to environmental cues. This powerful mechanism helps animals function in dynamic and even extreme settings. “What’s really captivating to me is that RNA editing is this twist on how information or meaning can be distributed in a biological system,” explained Rangan. “It’s changing the language of the genetic code, and it’s responsive to cellular and environmental cues. I think understanding this interplay will be important to our broader understanding of genetics.”

Rangan studies this largely uncharted epigenetic phenomenon through her interdisciplinary research program at Johns Hopkins University. Using her previous work as a roadmap and taking advantage of recent advances in sequencing, her group will be able to use this grant to support more field-based projects that explore cephalopod RNA editing in natural populations. Ultimately, understanding how RNA editing tailors protein function in response to unique environmental stressors could one day lead to new therapeutic targets.

As a research leader who has taken a diverse path through science, Rangan has advice for early career researchers. She suggests that in addition to pursuing scientific priorities, making space for other interests can be equally formative for a scientist. “I’ve heard people express concerns about gaps in their career, or not having a linear trajectory,” reflected Rangan. “I’ve been fortunate to have incredibly supportive advisors, and overall, those experiences which might seem scattered to some have shaped the way I approach science. To me, they’re a strength.”

Join us in congratulating Lim, Muralidhar, and Rangan on this great accomplishment!

, ,

Guest posts are contributed by members of our community. The views expressed in guest posts are those of the author(s) and are not necessarily endorsed by the Genetics Society of America. If you'd like to write a guest post, e-mail communications@genetics-gsa.org.

View all posts by Guest Author »

Read more in