Accolades: Researchers, Networks, and Prizewinning Science at Yale School of Medicine

James Rothman, PhD

Chair and Sterling Professor of Cell Biology at Yale School of Medicine; Professor of Chemistry at Yale University; Director of the Nanobiology Institute at the Yale West Campus 

Close head-shot of Dr. Rothman.

Though he has built a storied research career, James Rothman has emphasized that academic scientists learn from their colleagues at every stage of their careers. Rothman himself learned by observing mentors, especially while a young professor at Stanford University. There, his trajectory was influenced by working alongside biochemist Arthur Kornberg. Rothman has credited the environment that Kornberg fostered for laying the groundwork for Rothman’s own subsequent work on vesicle traffic, for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2013 with Randy Schekman and Thomas C. Südhof. In addition to the Nobel, Rothman has been recognized with a host of major accolades, including the Lasker Award for Basic Biomedical Research (2002), the Kavli Prize for Neuroscience (2010), and admission to the National Academy of Medicine (1995) and National Academy of Sciences (1993).