Sandy Schmid joined the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in 2020, bringing her career-long focus in cell biology to guide and amplify the scientific research of Biohub’s intramural research team as well as the Investigator Program.
A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Schmid came to the Biohub from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (UTSW), where she held the Cecil H. Green Distinguished Chair in Cellular and Molecular Biology and served as chair of the Department of Cell Biology.
Schmid was born in Vancouver, Canada, and received her B.Sc. (Honours) in cell biology at the University of British Columbia. She moved to the U.S. in 1980 for graduate studies with Jim Rothman at Stanford University. She was a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow and Lucille P. Markey Scholar with Ira Mellman and Ari Helenius at Yale, then moved to The Scripps Research Institute as an assistant professor in 1988. She served as Chair of the Department of Cell Biology at Scripps from 2000–2012 before being recruited to UTSW.
She is a leader in the scientific community whose research, published in over 150 papers, is directed toward elucidating the molecular mechanisms and regulation of clathrin-mediated endocytosis (CME), characterizing the differential regulation of CME in normal and cancer cells, and analyzing the structure and function of the GTPase dynamin. She has received numerous awards, including the American Society for Cell Biology’s Women in Cell Biology Junior and Senior Career Recognition Awards, an NIH MERIT Award, and the Arthur Kornberg and Paul Berg Lifetime Achievement Award in Biomedical Sciences.
Schmid received an M.S. degree in executive leadership from the University of San Diego and is committed to mentoring young scientists and future leaders. She gives frequent career development and time management seminars to postdoctoral fellows and junior faculty throughout the U.S.
