Mandana Sassanfar

Mandana Sassanfar holds a Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Biochemistry from the University Pierre and Marie Curie, Paris VI, and a PhD in Biochemistry from Cornell University. After completing her postdoctoral work at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Massachusetts General Hospital, she spent several years working in industry at Cubist Pharmaceuticals and teaching at Harvard College before joining the MIT Department of Biology in 2002. She is currently a senior lecturer in biology, the Director of Diversity and Science Outreach for the Department of Biology, the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), and the Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, and the Diversity Coordinator for the Center for Brains, Minds and Machines. Mandana spearheads a number of outreach activities primarily for undergraduates who are from socially or economically disadvantaged groups. She supervises the summer MSRP-Bio program and the IAP Quantitative Biology Workshop, organizes field trips to MIT for local high school and community college students, teaches a freshman IAP lab course and the lab component of the LEAH Knox Scholars program, and coordinates training opportunities for high school science teachers. Mandana is also the Director of the Massachusetts Junior Academy of Science and a Member of the Board of Tutors in Biochemical Sciences at Harvard University. In 2012, she became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Massachusetts Academy of Sciences, and earned the Dean’s Education & Advising Award from the MIT School of Science. She was also the President of the National Association of Academies of Science between 2011 and 2013.