Joanne Chory

I grew up in Boston the 3rd of 6 children in a close-knit Lebanese American family. The security of a loving family helped me develop the self-confidence to do hard things and venture into the unknown - college away from home where I fell in love with genetics, and graduate school where I learned the value of doing a good experiment and the joy that brings. This year I celebrated 32 years of marriage while watching my two beautiful children, who still make me laugh after all these years, becoming adults. In my long career as a Professor of Genetics at The Salk Institute - where I have trained over 100 students and postdocs - I’ve pursued fundamental questions of how plants perceive and adapt to their environment. I recently realized that I could apply these learnings to address the critical problem of climate change. Plants already take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, we just need to help them adapt to storing the CO2 in a more stable form. I’m excited to take one more step into the unknown, with a chance to impact the future!

My family and Suberin!

“Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors” Jonas Salk

Dancing!