Witkin Lecture
Photo: Bill Saunders/Courtesy of Rutgers Special Collections and University Archives
The Evelyn M. Witkin Lecture is an annual distinguished lecture held each Spring semester at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology, honoring the life and scientific legacy of Dr. Evelyn M. Witkin, a pioneering geneticist and longtime member of the Rutgers and Waksman communities.
About Evelyn M. Witkin
Evelyn M. Witkin (1921–2023) was a pioneering geneticist whose discoveries helped establish fundamental principles of DNA damage, repair, and mutagenesis. She joined Rutgers University in 1971 and remained an important member of the Rutgers and Waksman communities for more than five decades.
Witkin served as a Rutgers faculty member from 1971 to 1991, as a Laboratory Director at the Waksman Institute from 1983 to 1991, and as an emerita scientist from 1992 until her death in 2023.
Witkin made landmark contributions to bacterial molecular genetics and our understanding of how cells respond to DNA damage. Her research was central to the discovery and characterization of inducible DNA repair, now known as the SOS response, through which bacteria respond to DNA damage and regulate processes involved in repair and mutagenesis. Her laboratory also discovered Mfd, the transcription-repair coupling factor, which links transcription to DNA repair.
Her discoveries helped shape modern understanding of DNA repair, mutation, genome stability, and the cellular response to genetic damage.
Witkin received many of the highest honors in science during her career. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1977 and received the Thomas Hunt Morgan Medal in 2000, the National Medal of Science in 2002, the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences in 2015, and the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award in 2015.
In 2021, the Waksman Institute celebrated Witkin’s 100th birthday with a scientific symposium and the dedication of the Evelyn M. Witkin Laboratory in her honor. The celebration and laboratory dedication are described in Rutgers’ account of Witkin’s 100th birthday.
Building on that celebration, the Waksman Institute established the Evelyn M. Witkin Lecture as an annual distinguished lectureship. Held each Spring, the lecture continues Witkin’s legacy by bringing leading scientists to Waksman to share important new discoveries and engage with the next generation of researchers.
Past Witkin Lecturers
The Witkin Lecture has welcomed distinguished scientists whose research reflects the breadth and impact of modern genetics and molecular biology.
2026 — Nancy M. Bonini
Florence R.C. Murray Professor of Biology, University of Pennsylvania
2025 — Joann B. Sweasy
Robert F. and Myrna L. Krohn Chair in Cancer Research and Director, Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center and Eppley Institute for Research in Cancer and Allied Diseases, University of Nebraska Medical Center
2023 — Bonnie L. Bassler
Andrew K. Golden University Professor of Molecular Biology and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Princeton University
Learn More About Evelyn M. Witkin
- Evelyn M. Witkin — National Academy of Sciences
- Evelyn M. Witkin: A Biographical Memoir — National Academy of Sciences
- Rutgers Celebrates World-Renowned Geneticist Evelyn Witkin as She Turns 100 — Rutgers University
- Evelyn M. Witkin, World-Renowned Geneticist, Dies at 102 — Rutgers University
- 2021 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award: DNA-Damage Response — Lasker Foundation