BSD Diversity Committee

The BSD Diversity Committee works to enhance diversity in UChicago Biosciences by providing a central office that coordinates and promotes:

Social, cultural, and scientific interactions
Awareness of issues facing underrepresented students
Administrative student support, educational programs, and mentorship
Availability of funds for diversity programs
Student recruitment strategies through networking with established regional and national URM-serving organizations as well as by enhancing our programs' visibility.

The committee is led by co-chairs Eileen Dolan, Medicine and Cancer Biology, and Adam Hammond, Biophysical Sciences, and is composed of faculty, administrators, and students who represent the breadth of our graduate programs.

1942

Julian H. Lewis: debunked race-based blood typing

Julian H. Lewis, PhD 1915, the first African American to hold both an MD and a PhD, conducted groundbreaking research on race and blood typing that led to his hallmark book, Biology of the Negro (1942). His book was a precursor to the field of anthropathology and is credited with changing many people’s perspectives on race. Lewis was also the first African American to teach at the University of Chicago, where he was a noted expert in immunology.

1906

Robert R. Bensley: isolated beta cells, leading to the discovery of insulin

In a series of investigations starting in 1906, Robert R. Bensley demonstrated that the islets of Langerhans were specialized elements of the pancreas. He developed staining methods that distinguished between alpha cells and the beta cells that produce insulin. Bensley's work was fundamental to the discovery of insulin. He later developed techniques to disassemble cells and isolate cellular components by spinning them in a centrifuge, a technique he used in 1934 to isolate mitochondria.

2013

Robert Grossman: developed first NIH-approved cloud-based computing system to process cancer data

In 2013, data scientist Robert Grossman developed the Bionimbus Protected Data Cloud, the first cloud-based computing system approved by the National Institutes of Health to process data from the Cancer Genome Atlas, the agency’s flagship cancer genetics study. In late 2014, Grossman became director of the Genomic Data Commons, an NIH-funded project based on Bionimbus that will be the nation’s most comprehensive data facility when completed.

1974

Donald Johanson: discovered a previously unknown hominin

On a survey in Ethiopia, in 1974, paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson, AM’70, PhD’74, discovered “Lucy,” a 3.2 million-year-old bipedal hominin skeleton that was 40 percent intact. Classified in 1978 as the first known member of Australopithecus afarensis, Lucy is a direct ancestor of the modern human. The discovery changed our understanding of human evolution.

A reconstruction of Lucy at the Warsaw Museum of Evolution

1930s

Joseph B. Kirsner: transformed the field of gastroenterology

Gastroenterologist Joseph B. Kirsner joined UChicago in 1935, then pioneered modern understanding and treatment of inflammatory bowel disease He was one of the first to show the link between ulcerative colitis and increased risk of colon cancer, introduced guidelines for how doctors should care for patients, and helped found the American Gastroenterological Association, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases.