On Sept. 11, 2018, Joan Steitz, Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, received the 2018ﾠ Lasker~Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science for her pioneering role in expanding our understanding of RNA biology and her lifelong advocacy for inclusion of women in the sciences.

Steitz’s career has spanned four decades of breakthrough advances in molecular biology and, more recently, of promoting women in science. The Minneapolis native was a pioneer in the study of RNA.