Cheryl Y. Hayashi
Born
Hawaii
NationalityAmerican
Alma materYale University
Known forStudying spider silk
AwardsMacArthur Fellow
Scientific career
Fieldsfunctional genomics | comparative biology | biomechanics | biochemistry
Institutions

Cheryl Y. Hayashi is a biologist who specializes in the evolution and functional properties of spider silk. She is a curator, professor, and director of comparative biology research at the American Museum of Natural History, while also serving as the director of the Institute for Comparative Genomics and Provost of Science.[1] She was a graduate of Yale University, a professor at University California Riverside,[2] and a 2007 MacArthur Fellow.[3]

Education

Hayashi graduated from Iolani High School in 1985 and was a member of the school's first co-educational class. She continued her studies at Yale University, gaining a Bachelor of Science in 1988, Master of Science in 1990, and a Master of Philosophy in 1993.[1] She worked with Catherine Craig, including field work in Panama,[4] becoming interested in spiders when she had the job of hand-feeding the professor's colony of tropical spiders.[5]

She was awarded a PhD in 1996, with her dissertation on the systematics of spiders using ribosomal DNA.[6]

Career

After working as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Wyoming (1996-2001),[3] Hayashi was a professor at UC Riverside from 2001 to the end of 2016.[2]

Her UC Riverside laboratory's work characterized spiders in the spidroin gene family, including how silk is encoded and studying the basis of molecular diversity in spiders. A variety of techniques, including whole-gene cloning, genomics, biochemistry, and biomechanics, were used to study the evolution of spider silk.[2] Hayashi worked with engineers and biomechanics to understand spider silk, and to develop biomaterials based on spider genetic information.[2]

Hayashi was a speaker at the TED 2010 Conference.[7][8] She became curator, professor, and Leon Hess Director of Comparative Biology Research at the American Museum of Natural History in January 2017.[1]

Awards

She was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship Program in 2007.[3]

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Staff Profiles: Cheryl Y. Hayashi". American Museum of Natural History. American Museum of Natural History. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Cheryl Hayashi". Biology UC Riverside. University of California Riverside. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  3. 1 2 3 "Cheryl Hayashi: Spider Silk Biologist". MacArthur Fellows. MacArthur Foundation. 28 January 2007. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  4. ↑ Meserole, Rachel (26 February 2009). "Alumnus Profile: Cheryl Hayashi SM '88: "From Science Hill to Spider Silk Studies"". Yale Scientific. Yale University. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  5. ↑ "Unraveling the wonders of spider silk". National Science Foundation Discoveries. National Science Foundation. 9 December 2008. Retrieved 24 March 2017.
  6. ↑ Hayashi, Cheryl (1996). Molecular systematics of spiders: Evidence from ribosomal DNA (Thesis 9635417 ed.). Yale University. pp. 414 pages.
  7. ↑ "TED2010: Speakers A-Z". conferences.ted.com. Archived from the original on 2011-07-13. Retrieved 2010-03-27.
  8. ↑ "Discovery: Roundup of TED2010, Session 2". ted.com. 11 February 2010.
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