The Awards Committee is pleased to announce that Dr. Cheryl Lyn Walker is the recipient of the 2018 Distinguished Scientist Award in Toxicology. If you are attending the Annual Meeting, we invite you to join the College for the Awards Ceremony and Luncheon on Monday, November 5 from 12:00 noon–2:00 pm. Dr. Walker will be the keynote speaker, and the 2018 recipients of the other ACT awards will be announced: the Service Award, Early Career Professional Award, Carol C. Lemire Unsung Hero Award, North American and International Travel Grants, the Student Furst Award, the North American Graduate Fellowship, and the Award for Best Paper Published in International Journal of Toxicology. ACT is delighted to celebrate the accomplishments of the recipients of each of these awards.
Dr. Cheryl Lyn Walker is the director of the Center for Precision Environmental Health at Baylor College of Medicine, where she holds the Alkek Presidential Chair in Environmental Health and is a professor in the departments of Molecular & Cell Biology and Medicine. Dr. Walker is internationally recognized for her work in environmental health and elucidation of molecular mechanisms of disease. Her studies on the role of the epigenome in gene-environment interactions have yielded significant insights into mechanisms by which early-life environmental exposures influence health and disease across the lifecourse.
Dr. Walker earned her BA in 1977 from the University of Colorado-Boulder in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology, and a PhD in 1984 in cell biology from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, with additional postdoctoral training as a staff Fellow at National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
She has been recognized with the Cozarrelli Prize from the National Academy of Sciences, the 2016 Leading Edge in Basic Research Award from the Society of Toxicology, and the 2018 Roy O. Greep Award for Outstanding Research from the Endocrine Society. Dr. Walker is a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2016 was elected to National Academy of Medicine. She is a Past President of the Society of Toxicology and Past President of Women in Cancer Research of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), and has held numerous leadership and service positions on advisory boards for the National Academies, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense (DOD), and several foundations and patient advocacy groups. She currently serves on the Board of Scientific Advisors for the National Cancer Institute and the committee on “Gulf War and Health: Generational Health Effects of Serving in the Gulf War” for the National Academy of Sciences.