Nancy Andrews (biologist)


Nancy C. Andrews is an American biologist and physician noted for her research on iron homeostasis. Andrews was formerly Dean of the Duke University School of Medicine.

Biography

Andrews grew up in Syracuse, New York. She earned a B.S. and M.S. from Yale University. She carried out her M.S. research with Joan Steitz at Yale University, studying molecular biophysics and biochemistry, and continued her graduate work with David Baltimore, earning an M.D.-Ph.D. at Harvard Medical School and M.I.T.. She completed her postdoctoral work with Stuart Orkin at Children's Hospital Boston.
Andrews then joined the faculty at Harvard University, Boston Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in 1991, assuming an endowed chair in 2003, and the position of Dean for Basic Sciences and Graduate Studies at Harvard Medical School. In 2007, Andrews left to take a position as the first female Dean of Medicine at Duke University. In this position, she was the only woman heading any of the top ten medical schools in the U.S. She stepped down from the Deanship in 2017.
Andrews studied treatments for and molecular processes governing iron disease, such as anemia and hemochromatosis.
Andrews currently serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a member of the Board of Directors of Novartis. She is also a member of the Executive Committee of the MIT Corporation.

Personal life

She is married to fellow biologist Bernard Mathey-Prevot with whom she has two children, Camille and Nicolas. She is the great-granddaughter of New York Court of Appeals Judge William Shankland Andrews and author Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, and great-great-granddaughter of New York Court of Appeals Chief Judge Charles Andrews and Bishop Frederic Dan Huntington. She is also the great-niece of composer Roger Sessions, who was the brother of her paternal grandmother, Hannah Sargent Sessions Andrews.

Awards and honors