Yale Bestows Postdoc Mentoring Award on Diane Krause, MD, PhD

Diane Krause, MD, PhD, professor of laboratory medicine, of cell biology, and of pathology, has received the 2018 Yale Postdoctoral Mentoring Prize, awarded annually by the Office of the Provost to a faculty member who exemplifies the role of a mentor and who has provided exceptional mentoring to one or more postdoctoral scholars during the previous year.

Associate Provost Karen Anderson presented the award to Krause, who also is associate director of the Yale Stem Cell Center and of the Transfusion Medicine Service, and medical director of the Clinical Cell Processing Laboratory and of the Advanced Cell Therapy Laboratory. Anderson praised Krause’s lab for propelling postdocs toward ladder faculty positions in academia at a higher than average rate—largely, she said, because Krause is not only effective at identifying young scientists who will be successful, but also takes special care to focus on their growth, guiding them toward achieving their professional goals.

“Science is what drives me,” said Krause as she accepted the honor. “That extends to what truly drives the science—the people in my lab,” who work toward defining molecular mechanisms related to blood stem and progenitor cells and leukemia, and developing novel treatment strategies.

Those young scientists include Nadia Ayala-Lopez, PhD, a second-year postdoctoral fellow who is one of four current or past lab members who nominated Krause for the honor. “Diane has supported me from the beginning, in promoting my professional development but also making sure that my personal development was well taken care of,” said Ayala-Lopez, who also is chair of the Yale Postdoctoral Association, which promotes the well-being of the more than 1,200 postdocs who work at Yale. “To be in her lab is very stimulating. She encourages our creativity. She encourages us to form collaborations, and she is always pushing us as our biggest cheerleader.”

At the award presentation, Krause said her lab is an exciting place because of the science her mentees perform while in the laboratory, and that her mentees are “also my legacy based on what they go on to do” in science and in their lives, whether in faculty positions, as research scientists, or in important jobs in consulting or in the biotechnology and pharma spheres—all of which are career paths that make her proud.

Krause is the ninth faculty recipient of the Postdoctoral Mentoring Prize, which the Office of the Provost inaugurated in 2010.