We are delighted that Dr Kathy Niakan has been elected to the Mary Marshall and Arthur Walton Professorship of the Physiology of Reproduction from October 2020, and will become the next Chair of the Cambridge Reproduction Strategic Research Initiative (SRI). Kathy was one of the first Next Generation Fellows in the Centre for Trophoblast Research (CTR) and went on to become a group leader at the Francis Crick Institute in London. There, Kathy’s research has focused on studying the mechanisms determining cell fate decisions in the human early embryo, in particular the origin of the trophectoderm lineage. In doing so, Kathy has been engaged in ethical and sociological debates at the national level over the broader use of human embryos in research, and has been collaborating with members of the Reproductive Sociology Research Group (ReproSoc) at the University of Cambridge. Kathy will also become the next Director of the CTR, and we look forward most warmly to welcoming her back to Cambridge.
Professor Graham Burton, the current Chair of the Cambridge Reproduction SRI said, "I am very pleased that Kathy is returning to Cambridge as the Mary Marshall Chair. Kathy is an exceptional scientist whose research spans biological, social and ethical aspects of embryological development. She is ideally equipped to lead the SRI to new heights, and I look forward to working with her over the succession."