Nancy Walworth, PhD

Nancy Walworth received her undergraduate degree in Life Sciences from MIT in 1985 and her PhD in Cell Biology from Yale University in 1990. She conducted post-doctoral research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory as a fellow of the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund where she identified the Chk1 protein kinase as a mediator of the cellular response to DNA damage.

Before joining the faculty at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1994, she spent one year at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. She is now Professor and Interim Chair of the Department of Pharmacology at Rutgers RWJMS. In addition to her research characterizing the Chk1 pathway, she is interested in factors that influence chromosome segregation in eukaryotes. Dr. Walworth teaches pharmacology in the pre-clinical curriculum, served as course co-director for the M2 Medical Pharmacology course from 1997 to 2010, and chaired the second-year course directors committee from 2002 to 2010.

She participated in the redesign of the medical school curriculum, working closely with Dr. Laura Willett and others to create the introductory M2 course Clinical Foundations of Diagnostics and Therapeutics. In 2007, Dr. Walworth was selected to membership in the Stuart D Cook MD Master Educators Guild from RWJMS.

As a member of the Guild, Dr. Walworth organized the 2010 Master Educators Guild Spring Symposium, Seeing the Forest AND the Trees: Science Foundations for Health Professionals.  Dr. Walworth is committed to the education of graduate students in basic life sciences and serves as co-director of the Rutgers Graduate Programs in Molecular Biosciences, which recruits, admits, and provides a comprehensive first-year curriculum to five PhD degree-granting programs on the Piscataway/New Brunswick campus.

With her colleague and co-director, Dr. Richard Padgett, Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers SAS, and member of the Waksman Institute, they oversaw the development and implementation of a new curriculum for PhD students that incorporates active learning, mini-courses, and the teaching of essential skills to first-year students.  Dr. Walworth received Excellence in Teaching Awards from the NJ Health Foundation in recognition of her contributions to graduate education in 2010 and 2014, and the Professor of the Year Award from the Molecular Biosciences Graduate Student Association in 2012.