Mary Beckerle was selected as the new executive director of the U’s Huntsman Cancer Institute on Aug. 16 following an extensive national search.
Beckerle has been a U faculty member since 1986. Her research is focused on cells and how they move and stick together, processes crucial to gaining better perspectives on cancer and its growth.
Her lab has discovered pathways that control these activities in normal cells and is currently investigating how they are disturbed in cancerous cells.
Beckerle was named an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association and received a senior research award from the American Cancer Society.
Since 1999, she has held the Ralph E. and Willa T. Main Presidential Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. She also is currently serving as the president of the American Society of Cell Biology.
Beckerle currently serves as HCI’s deputy director and senior of laboratory research. She will be replacing Randall Burt, who served as interim director since June 2005.