A Conversation with Holly A. Ingraham, PhD
During this informal discussion with the 2023 UCSF Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award winner, Dr. Ingraham will share her thoughts and experiences on how to be an effective mentor and sponsor. The discussion will rely heavily on audience participation –so please bring your questions.
Some topics to be discussed include:

Mentorship for women faculty, post-docs, and trainees.
How mentoring can help promote more diversity in biomedical research.
Effective mentorship and team science.

Dr. Ingraham began her scientific journey exploring the unseen world through her great grandfather’s 1890 Bausch and Lomb microscope. Dr. Ingraham joined the UCSF faculty in 1991, where her initial work uncovered how NR5A nuclear receptors regulate key facets of endocrinology and metabolism. Her recent dissection of sex differences in the brain and peripheral tissues has defined molecular pathways that control female physiology and behavior and has illuminated basic molecular processes controlling endocrine development and pathways that impact female physiology. Her group provided a mechanistic understanding of the preovulatory activity spike, underscoring the impact of estrogen in counteracting metabolic decline. This work was featured in the NYT Science Section (10/26/21). Other studies with her collaborator (and spouse), David Julius, have established sex differences in visceral pain responses highly relevant to gut disorders, such as IBS.
Dr. Ingraham received the EB Astwood Outstanding Basic Science Award and the Transatlantic Medal in Endocrinology. She is a fellow of the AAAS and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences. In addition to mentoring lab members, she directs the UCSF IRACDA Program, an NIH-funded program promoting diversity in our nation’s biomedical research enterprise. The UCSF program cultivates a strong group of biomedical scientists to pursue independent academic careers and to enrich the collaborative relationship between UCSF and SFSU in research, training, and mentoring.