The rockefeller university

Rockefeller University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne will receive the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Biomedical Research at MSKCC’s 2011 Academic Convocation today. Tessier-Lavigne is the keynote speaker and will deliver the Convocation Address.


Tessier-Lavigne was elected 10th president of the university by its Board of Trustees on September 8, 2010 following an international search. He joined Rockefeller in March 2011. A world leader in the study of brain development, Tessier-Lavigne has pioneered the identification of the molecules that direct the formation of connections among nerve cells to establish neuronal circuits in the mammalian brain and spinal cord.

The former chief scientific officer of Genentech, Tessier-Lavigne also was the Susan B. Ford Professor at Stanford University and served on the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco. He was a Howard Hughes Medical Institutes investigator from 1994 to 2003. He is the recipient of numerous scientific awards and is an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the Royal Societies of the U.K. and Canada.

MSKCC’s convocation celebrates the achievements of students graduating from the Sloan-Kettering Division, Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Cornell University, and recognizes the contributions of outstanding clinicians, researchers, and nursing professionals — both within and outside MSKCC.