Professor Joanne Chory was honored with the Trailblazer Award from Salk Women & Science. The award recognizes outstanding achievements made by women in the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) fields. Recipients have pioneered changes within the STEAM fields as innovators, groundbreakers, collaborators and mentors. They have dedicated their lives to making significant advances in both their professional and personal realms. Trailblazers forge their own paths to achieve their vision.

Chory’s efforts leading Salk’s Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology Laboratory, in addition to her roles as a professor, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology, have been widely acclaimed. She was awarded the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and was made a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. Her work leading Salk’s Harnessing Plants Initiative, which focuses on creating plants that store more carbon in their root networks to help mitigate the effects of climate change, was instrumental in the Institute being chosen in 2019 for funding of more than $35 million through The Audacious Project, a highly competitive program housed at TED.