Dr. Lora Hooper, who graduated from Rhodes in 1989 with a bachelor’s degree in biology, has been elected to the National Academy of Sciences, one of the highest honors attainable by American scientists.
After graduating from Rhodes, she entered the Molecular Cell Biology and Biochemistry Program at Washington University. Hooper currently is a professor in the immunology and microbiology departments at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her research focuses on understanding how resident intestinal bacteria influence the biology of mammalian hosts.
She also is an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute whose mission is to empower exceptional scientists and students to pursue fundamental questions about living systems.