Timothy Mitchison, PhD

Tim Mitchison, PhD, received his BA in Biochemistry from Oxford University, England, in 1980, and his PhD from the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), in Biochemistry and Biophysics in 1984, where he worked with Professor Marc Kirschner. At this time he discovered the dynamic instability of microtubules. Later he worked at the National Institute for Medical Research in London. In 1987 he returned to San Francisco to become an Assistant Professor at UCSF. In 1997 he moved to the Cell Biology Department at Harvard Medical School where he co-founded the Institute for Chemistry and Cell Biology.

Dr. Mitchison was a founding member of the HMS Department of Systems Biology, which started in 2004. He is currently Deputy Chair of the department, and Co-director of the Systems Biology PhD Program. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1997, and member of the American Association of Arts and Sciences in 2008. In 2010 he served as President of the American Society of Cell Biology. And most recently in 2014 he became a member of the National Academy of Sciences.