Elizabeth Nolan

Liz Nolan was raised in Niskayuna, New York and graduated magna cum laude from Smith College in 2000 with highest honors in chemistry and a minor in music. Liz conducted her graduate studies in inorganic chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she joined the laboratory of Professor Stephen J. Lippard. Her doctoral work focused on the synthesis, characterization, and application of small-molecule fluorescent sensors for detecting zinc in biological samples and mercury in aqueous solution. Liz pursued post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Professor Christopher T. Walsh at Harvard Medical School where she investigated the biosynthetic assembly of microcin E492m, an antibiotic “Trojan horse” peptide that targets Gram-negative bacteria expressing siderophore uptake pumps. Liz joined the Department of Chemistry at MIT as an assistant professor in 2009. Her current research interests include synergies between metal ion homeostasis and immunity, and the roles of host-defense peptides and metalloproteins in various biological phenomena. Liz received a 2010 NIH New Innovator Award, and she was named a Searle Scholar in 2011 and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow in 2013.